


Survivors and Sychophants

by acid rounds (cobwebcorner)



Series: Things We Don't Tell Chris [6]
Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Anal Sex, Bottom Leon, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Temporary Character Death, Top Wesker, a faint whiff of D/s, enemies to frienemies with benefits to oh fuck I'm having a feeling what do, everyone wave goodbye to the red shirts, medical procedures referenced, the satisfying sound of one's impalement, very brief and only in the final chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:15:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 86,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24868978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobwebcorner/pseuds/acid%20rounds
Summary: Wesker and Leon have reached a fine equilibrium in their enemies with benefits relationship which both of them are enjoying, when one night Leon disappears off the face of the Earth.Wesker did not intend to go looking for him. He was as surprised as anyone when he found the lost agent hidden deep in an old Umbrella laboratory, one so secret that even the Red Queen computer had no records of it.On the surface it looks like a golden opportunity to ensnare his favorite government lapdog. But Leon is wounded, Umbrella's loyalists are lurking in the shadows, and there are things down there dangerous enough to threaten even the likes of Wesker. Getting back out with his prize may incur a higher cost than he anticipated.Alternate title: Wesker, Ada, and Leon Scream Internally while Trying to Act Cool for Several Hours and No One Has a Good Time.
Relationships: Leon S. Kennedy/Albert Wesker
Series: Things We Don't Tell Chris [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/877101
Comments: 293
Kudos: 468





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Buckle in kids, this one will be a long ride! Needless to say this is part of a series and the relationships won't make much sense without reading the previous entries.
> 
> As usual, all original characters are either red shirts or people who, logically, already exist in the game world, but never got named or fleshed out. Canon will be bent with increasing prejudice, to serve my needs.

_September 25th, 2004_

_9:20 AM Holy Cross Hospital_

Leon had never considered himself claustrophobic before, but the MRI machine was doing its best to change his opinion. There was nothing to look at but smooth and featureless white plastic, no easy and quick way to exit the tunnel should he need to, and nothing to listen to but the knocking hum of the machinery. His bruised shoulder was very unhappy about being pressed into the pad underneath him. Nothing could be done about that, it was only one of many and Leon could not find a comfortable position that suited every battered part of himself.

“Well, it's definitely dead,” the doctor said, his voice muffled by the walls of the machine. Some of the tension left Leon's shoulders. “Removing the corpse could be tricky. It's lodged under the ribs, very close to the spine.”

“I would recommend leaving it,” said the second doctor, “so long as it's not providing any discomfort.”

Leon took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You sure it won't come back to life?” he asked.

“I would find that highly unlikely,” the second doctor said.

Leon and Ashley had only been on American soil for a few hours, and Leon had insisted their first stop be to a hospital. Luis's machine seemed to have killed the parasites, but Leon wasn't about to take any chances. Not with himself, and definitely not with Ashley.

The pad slid quietly out from the machine, freeing Leon from the tunnel. He sat up gingerly, grunting as the movement strained his throbbing ribs.

“How does it feel?” the first doctor asked.

“I can't even tell it's there,” he replied.

“No need for surgery, then. Just get some bed rest and be gentle on that shoulder for a while.”

Leon nodded, sliding off the pad.

“How's Ashley?”

“She'll be fine,” the second doctor replied.

“Thank god,” Leon said. He picked up his wallet, keys, and phone from the chair where he'd left them, slipping them back into his pockets.

Despite their assurance, he waited a little to check on the girl before finally leaving the hospital. He still had to write up his report and deal with a lot of other bureaucratic formalities, but for now all he wanted to do was collapse in a soft bed and sleep for the next decade.

He turned his phone on once he was out of the hospital, checking his messages for anything he'd missed. There was a single text waiting for him, from a number he didn't recognize.

“Congratulations, Mr. Kennedy.” Leon's lips twitched. It wasn't hard to guess the sender, though he was sure he wouldn't be able to get back to the number. “You survived again.”

He slipped the phone back into his pocket, squinting in the morning sunlight. “Always do,” he muttered.


	2. In Which A Lab is Raided

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leon hates running into Wesker at work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prologue was very short, so I'm updating a little earlier than I usually would :)
> 
> Thank you for all the comments and kudos (wow you guys are excited), and I hope you're all staying safe out there!

_August 9th, 2006_

_1:28 AM Biotic Labs_

Dim, silent, toxic—those were the three words that came to mind as Leon crept through the empty laboratory, and all the humming fluorescent lights in the world didn't help the impression. The neat rows of towering specimen tanks and incubation chambers cut squares from the light and boxed him in, adding a whiff of claustrophobic closeness to the already uneasy surroundings. Leon huffed a little laugh to himself. He'd finally gotten his wish. Here he was in a bioweapons research lab before everything went to shit, and it gave him the same bad feeling that all the trashed ones did. Somehow, the fact that all the monsters and viruses were safely locked behind glass just wasn't comforting.

Technically, he wasn't supposed to be here. Surprise undercover inspections were not part of his job description, and despite what Claire seemed to think, it wasn't often he got to play James Bond. A raid on a lab like this ought to go to Chris's people, by all rights. Still, he couldn't let Chris and Jill have all the fun.

Hunnigan and his boss were both going to be livid when he got back. Simmons had given him very clear instructions to ignore the tip and not go anywhere near this place. If he’d been able to back that up with a good enough reason, Leon might even have listened to him. But he hadn’t, and Leon trusted his source a lot more than his boss. The formerly human abomination floating in the tank an inch from his face just went to show he’d bet on the right horse. He snapped a few pictures of the specimen and moved on. Hopefully, these snapshots would be enough to soothe all the ruffled feathers once he got back to Washington. If the DSO still tried to ignore this lab after that, he would send his evidence straight to the BSAA. As an international organization operating under the UN, Chris and his group sometimes had a lot more freedom to work than Leon did.

It was long after hours, so only a bare bones security team roamed the halls. So far they had been easy to dodge. Compared to running through hordes of mind-controlled Spanish villagers, sneaking by a handful of lightly armed guards was child’s play.

At the back of the lab, Leon ran up against a thick metal door with no obvious locking mechanism. The only thing marring the smooth surface of the steel was an embossed crest depicting an upside-down triangle with two snakes twisting up the middle, similar to the health industry’s caduceus symbol yet subtly different. An egg hung between them at the very center of the design, and there were words along each side of the triangle, too small and shadowed to be readable.

“Don’t tell me. I’m going to need to find an emblem to get you open,” Leon grumbled to the door.

The cool, hard barrel of a gun pressed into the back of his neck. “Hands up!” growled a man behind him.

Leon slowly complied, cursing himself for the moment of distraction. Ada would be laughing at him, if she saw how easily he’d just been caught.

“Who are you? How did you get in here?” asked a second voice.

“Just a lost janitor, fellas, no need to get rough. You wouldn’t happen to know the way to the nearest broom closet, would you?”

“Cut the crap,” said the second voice, and the gun barrel jammed harder into his skin, pushing his head forward.

“Just frisk him. I’m calling the boss.”

They made him spread his hands on the wall and quickly divested him of most of his weapons, save for two knives, which they missed.

“Sir? Sorry to bother you,” one was saying into an earpiece. “Caught an intruder. Looks like a, a secret agent or some shit. Yeah. Okay.”

“Clear,” said the man who was frisking Leon. Leon couldn’t quite contain a smirk at the wall, even as his wrists were forced behind his back and handcuffed. These guys were such amateurs. A thick hand grabbed him under the elbow and spun him around, so he could see the black eye of the gun barrel and the impassive face of the man holding it. Leon blew his bangs out of his eyes, unruffled by the rough treatment.

“C’mon. We’re taking a little hike up to the security room.”

He sized up the guards as they walked. Both were tall, Caucasian, one a reddish-blond and the other brunette. Their uniforms consisted of a light black vest for armor, dark blue shirts with the lab logo on the sleeve, dark slacks and black combat boots. Each carried a handgun, radio, and some rectangular device Leon couldn’t identify.

There was so little to differentiate them from each other, Leon decided to call them Guard A and Guard B. The two guards marched him back to the first basement floor, into a security room with a wall full of monitors and a handful of chairs in the center. They threw him roughly into a seat. Leon sat calmly, pulling lightly at the handcuffs behind his back, assessing their make. They felt pretty standard. Given a second unobserved, he could probably pick the lock with the pin hidden in his watch.

The two men wouldn’t pose much of a problem. All he needed was one good opportunity. As for their boss, Leon was equally confident he could take out the head of security if he arrived. With any luck, their boss would have some keys Leon could use to get deeper into the facility, maybe even that snake emblem for the door Leon had been looking at earlier--

So he was thinking, right before the door opened and Albert Wesker walked in. Leon stiffened in his seat. There went all his half-baked plans for an easy escape. He _hated_ running into Wesker at work.

Wesker paused at the sight of him, his head tilted to one side as he drank the scene in. “ _Well_ ,” he purred, mouth curling into a smirk. “Leon Kennedy. I suppose I don’t need to ask who you work for.”

Not to be outdone, Leon grinned in return. “Hey baby.”

Wesker did not twitch, though Leon could tell he wanted to.

“You uh, know him sir?” asked Guard A.

“We’ve met before. Mr. Kennedy is a DSO agent.” Wesker supplied. “But, isn’t it strange. I didn’t know the DSO were in the habit of sending lone agents to snoop around perfectly legitimate research laboratories.”

“With perfectly legitimate humanoid bioweapons,” Leon muttered.

“In fact, I recall reassuring the DSO inspector just last week about our stringent ethics standards.”

“I’m sure he appreciated the donation to his kid’s college fund,” Leon scoffed. “Obviously the inspector was having some serious eye problems.”

“We picked him up inside Lab Delta, sir,” Guard B piped up.

“Then he’s seen too much,” Wesker said, all too clearly relishing this. “If only he’d followed the tip about InGen’s Nevada facility, instead. Then he wouldn’t be here in this sticky situation.”

Leon glowered up at him and mouthed, “ _I don’t work for you._ ”

Wesker only seemed more amused by this. He bent down and caught Leon’s chin in one hand so he could tilt his face up. “Perhaps next time you will choose your informants more carefully.” His grip tightened just to the edge of pain. “Who led you here, and what information did they give you?”

Don’t show pain, don’t show weakness, Leon chanted to himself as he fought down a grimace. This was not the kind of situation in which he wanted to mix Wesker and handcuffs.

“Didn’t need an informant,” he grunted. “Just followed the screaming.”

“I doubt it. Our walls are quite sound proof.” The hand dropped menacingly to Leon’s throat. “If there is a leak in our organization, my employers will want to know about it.”

“Is it just me, or have you taken a few steps down the corporate ladder?” Leon asked him. “I heard you used to run your own laboratory. Now you’re someone’s trumped up security guard?”

“As a matter of fact, I do run this laboratory.” Wesker flashed his teeth. “I simply enjoy taking these little security matters into my own hands now and then.”

“Lucky me,” Leon grumbled.

Wesker released his neck and turned to the two guards.

“What did he have on him?”

“Enough bullets for a small army, two guns, a combat knife, and three grenades.” Guard A shrugged. “Guy was armed for bear.”

“Expecting an outbreak?” Wesker asked him.

“You know my luck,” Leon replied.

“So you do learn.”

“There was also this,” Guard B said, holding out Leon’s phone.

Wesker took the phone and tapped the power button. At the sight of the lockscreen, his eyebrow raised. He looked in Leon’s direction.

Leon was staring very fixedly at the phone and feeling all the previously evacuated blood flush back into his cheeks with a vengeance. He cleared his throat and dragged his eyes back up to Wesker’s face. The lockscreen, originally sabotaged by Ada and left that way by Leon because it made him smile, would have been a harmless, cheeky joke to anyone who _didn’t know Wesker_.

“Something wrong?” Leon asked, willing the heat to leave his cheeks.

“Hn.”

“I definitely didn’t look at it sir,” said Guard B, carefully not looking at Wesker.

“Look at what?” Guard A asked.

“I’ll crack it later,” Wesker said, pocketing the phone. “I’m trying to be civil with you, Mr. Kennedy, but if you don’t tell me what I want to know then I will have no choice but to--”

The door burst open, admitting a panting and wide-eyed third security guard, much younger and scrawnier than the other two.

“Sir!” the newcomer barked. “We’ve just had an alert from the eastern compound. More intruders--it looks like a full assault squad.”

“Hmm. So you didn’t come alone after all,” Wesker said, looking down at Leon.

Leon blinked. He most certainly had come alone, and he didn’t imagine even Hunnigan could wrangle a team into coming after him, not after the way he’d stormed off.

His moment of confusion did not go unnoticed. Wesker studied him, a furrow appearing between his brows.

“Send delta team to delay them and prepare the MA-121s for deployment,” Wesker barked, immediately turning on his heel and striding towards the man at the door. “I want those laboratories in full lockdown. And you two!” At the door he whipped around, thrust one menacing, gloved finger toward the guards behind Leon, and snarled, “Do not speak to him, release him, or give him anything. You will keep him here and stand guard until this mess is dealt with.”

“Sir!” they chirped in unison.

Wesker departed along with the harried messenger, leaving Leon alone with the two guards. He slumped back in the chair and blew out a breath. That had been a close one.

“No funny business out of you, Mr. Government,” Guard A said.

Leon was not impressed.

An uneasy silence stretched between the 3 of them, Leon focusing on the door as if he hoped to see through it, his feelings conflicted. On the one hand, he was happy to see a wrench thrown into Wesker’s plans any day. On the other, he had a legitimate worry that this second mystery team might unleash laboratory specimens and spark an outbreak. He tensed his arms against the handcuffs, calculating possible maneuvers in case that door burst open and a mob of the undead lurched through.

A soft whirring sound passed the door, like a remote control car had just whizzed down the hall outside.

“Hunters are out,” the guard at the monitors observed. He flashed a grin at his mate over his shoulder. “Those idiots are going to regret storming this facility the second they get a face-full of claw.”

“You mean you’ve let BOWs out?” Leon demanded, alarmed.

“Relax, Mr. Government. They’re under control.”

“There’s no _controlling_ BOWs.”

“The boss can. What good would they be as weapons if you couldn’t point them in the right direction?” As he spoke, the guard pulled that mystery rectangular device from his belt and pressed a button. One of the lights on its casing flared orange. “They won’t come in here. As long as you stay with us like a good boy, you don’t have anything to worry about.”

“We’re not supposed to talk to him,” said Guard B.

Guard A shrugged and turned back around.

Wesker appeared on one of the monitors. Hunters clustered around him like a pack of eager, scaly hunting dogs, flexing their claws and pacing. It seemed he was just another reptile in the crowd. They suited each other, Leon reflected. Wesker’s head turned, attention caught by something off screen. He drew his gun, and the hunters screamed and pounced out of sight, attacking some unseen enemy.

Squads of the invaders appeared across many of the monitors, all wearing heavy black combat armor complete with gas masks and wielding assault rifles. It looked like a small army had come to raid the lab. Leon watched as one group encountered a little drone rolling down the middle of the hall. It vibrated angrily at the sight of them, and within seconds a mob of hunters descended on the group. Chris had said something once about Wesker setting a bunch of hunters on him. Leon hadn’t realized the man had an actual delivery system for it.

With one guard fixated on the screens, that was one gun off of him. It was the best opportunity he was likely to get. Leon slipped a pin out from his watch and worked quickly on the handcuff lock.

Wesker appeared again on a lower screen, calmly wading through the carnage his hunters had left on the floor. Suddenly he staggered forward, his hand clutching his side. The hunters all turned around, mouths gaping in outrage at whoever had just shot their master. They all swarmed towards the enemy--except one. One hunter had stood alone at the front of the pack, a little in front of Wesker. When it turned and noticed him sagging with one hand pressed to his bleeding side, it saw opportunity and jumped straight at _him_ instead.

Control, yeah right. Those things were little bundles of instinct wrapped around a set of sharp teeth. The minute Wesker showed any weakness, they turned on him.

Yet Wesker was not as weak as he appeared. He caught the hunter in midair, his hand gripping the spot between head and shoulder where a neck ought to be. He turned it away from him, forcing it to look at the wall instead of his dripping wound. Within seconds the hunter calmed from angry thrashing to idle fidgeting. Wesker set it down and gave it a shove in the direction of its comrades, propelling it to join them. He sank back into a shadow, his hand still pressed to his side.

"That's not good," Guard A said.

"What is it?" Guard B asked.

Leon struck. Quick and silent as a viper, he jumped from the chair and caught Guard B with an arm around his throat, choking him into silence. They struggled while the other guard talked, oblivious.

"They're breaking through the door to Beta lab. We better send some reinforcements down that way." Guard A took the mystery device from his belt again and started tapping at the keys, too intent on his task to notice as Guard B lost the brief scuffle and slumped to the ground, unconscious. Leon took the guard’s gun and crept up closer to his second opponent.

"There. That should hold them off for a--" he cut off as Leon very rudely slammed the butt of the gun into the man's neck. The blow sent him crashing to the ground, winded though not unconscious. He scrambled for his weapon, only to have it kicked out of his reach. Leon pointed his new gun in the guard’s face, wordlessly advising him to cease any further movement. The guard stilled.

"Trust me, buddy, you really don't want to leave this room," he said.

"No, actually, I think I want to get out of here before the worst BOW in this building comes back to ask me more questions," Leon replied.

He grabbed his things, shoving weapons into holsters and pockets with one hand while the other kept the gun trained on Guard A. The smart thing would have been to handcuff the guy. But if he left the guard bound, and something broke in here before his buddy woke up...Damn his bleeding heart.

“You lock this door behind me,” Leon told him, his hand on the knob.

The guard shrugged.

“Your funeral, Mr. Government.”

The guard didn’t need to know that Leon ran through an outbreak every day before breakfast. He gave the guard a mocking little wave and left the security room. He was halfway down the hall before the lock even clicked.

All he had to do was get out. He was on the ground floor, with a straight shot to the doors if he didn’t take a wrong turn. Behind him came whirring, high-pitched and mechanical. One of those little white drones was spinning up to him, fast. A sensor light emitting from its head dragged up and down the corridor, scanning. Leon hurried at a crouching run to the nearest corner and stopped dead.

A team of the invading forces were gathered around a door, attempting to force it open. Now that he saw them up close, without the grainy distortion of security cam footage, he could make out the red and white logo on their uniforms.

Umbrella.

To him it had become a symbol of everything that could go wrong with the world, of corruption and greed and the sickest, darkest corners of science without conscience. It baffled him that anyone could still be loyal to that name, even years after the company itself had been dismantled by the combined fury of the UN and their own stockholders. Yet here stood the proof in front of him, and he’d witnessed it a few months ago as well when a similar team had barged in on a very private Christmas rendezvous between himself, Wesker, and Ada. Which reminded him, he still needed to give Wesker his sweater back.

The real puzzle was what the hell they were after. Umbrella couldn’t operate in the bioweapons business anymore, not with their big name clients publicly turned against them. Yet here they were, looting a competitor.

He backed up carefully. The drone was coming up behind him at a steady clip, and the men still hadn’t noticed him. There was another door down the hall, just past the drone’s searching beam. If he got lucky, it might be unlocked, and he could duck in there to hide out while the drone and the Umbrella goons had a meet-cute that ended in a horde of angry hunters.

It was just a matter of getting past the drone undetected. Its beam didn’t scan in a regular pattern, instead lurching from side to side as the drone rolled forward, a design flaw that left plenty of gaps for the sharp-eyed and agile.

He jumped forward and rolled at just the right time, narrowly dodging the beam. The drone continued rolling forward on its merry way, none the wiser. Leon ran for that door, pumped his fist once on finding it open, and ducked inside.

He’d thought about triggering the drone on purpose and then hiding, just to make sure the hunters showed up to handle the Umbrella team. They were Umbrella. They probably deserved it. It had been such a Wesker-like thought that he’d shied away from the idea. _He_ didn’t need to rely on monsters to solve his problems for him.

The room was some sort of chemical storage, and on closer inspection the only reason the door was open was because someone had already blasted through the lock. It gently bumped into the frame and rebounded when he tried to close it. Some of the cabinet doors were also open, and the nearby air vent had its cover off. It might have been an Umbrella team’s entry point.

Before he could consider going out the way they had come in, he saw something in the vent that had him ducking down behind a counter.

The dark was full of yellow eyes.

Glistening wet, vertically slit, small and beady eyes that crawled out from the vent and hung, searching. Red splashover from the emergency light glinted on long bony claws.

He knew he should have brought the shotgun.

Leon huddled beneath the sparse cover of the counter, his handgun ready to fire, whatever good it would do him. He didn’t dare breathe. There were at least three--no, four. They spilled out from the vent, one after another, lowly hissing and barking to each other. Just one slash from those claws could take a man’s head off, Carlos had told him.

At the call of a sudden, high pitched electronic wail from outside, the whole gang of BOWs straightened as if electrified, every yellow eye fixed on the door. As one the group poured out of the room, answering the drone’s call.

Leon let out the breath he’d been holding and let his head thunk back against the counter.

* * *

Wesker folded against the wall, one hand pressed to the bullet wounds sizzling in his side, teeth grit. The bullets--there had been three--had torn into his lower back and right side, where they now sat and festered. When he pulled the cloth of his shirt back he could see the holes weren’t healing. Beneath the smears of blood, the black, ragged edges of flesh steamed faintly. The wounds were expanding instead of shrinking.

He’d been cocky, strolling into the combat zone without even a bullet-proof vest, trusting in his powers to save him. In the future he’d be more prepared. Perhaps he should invest in a catsuit and trenchcoat made entirely of carbon weave? That would take the bite out of any bullet. Something to think about later.

The worst part about dealing with Umbrella was their anti-BOW rounds. Every time his body adjusted to them, they cooked up a new formula with nastier and longer lasting effects. Given a few days, his body would adapt to overcome the special chemical coating which made the bullets so dangerous. His system might even be able to incorporate the chemicals into itself, to grow stronger with it. He had no desire to walk around in agony for that long. He needed to remove the bullets and flush the area, and he would not trust an HCF doctor to do it. The last thing he needed was for the bullets to fall into his current employer's hands. It they realized how effective the ammunition was against him, his future could get dicey.

Around the corner, a man in black combat gear had paused to speak into his radio. Wesker could just see his back, and the old, familiar logo printed on the vest.

"This is HUNK from Alpha team. We've lost sight of the secondary target. Primary target has been acquired."

Wesker's eyes narrowed. Two targets, and they’d already gotten one of them. He’d like to know just what that was.

"Copy that. Proceeding to the extraction point."

Wesker flexed his side, testing the wounded muscles, and grimaced. Functionality was down to about 60%. If he weren't hurt, and that wasn't HUNK, he would have gone out and snapped the frail human's neck in a heartbeat.

He hadn't lived this long by being reckless. So he stayed in his shadow and glowered while the enemy retreated down the corridor.

"Boss,” his earpiece buzzed. “The prisoner’s escaped into hunter town. You do not pay me enough to go get him."

Wesker sighed. Of course he had. The halls were crawling with both hunters and mercenaries, but Leon would no doubt escape unscathed, as he always did. Right now Wesker had bigger problems. "Forget him. What are the Umbrella agents doing?"

“They’ve broken into two labs so far. Looks like they’re messing with the computers.”

“Any containment breaches?”

“No, sir, they’re leaving the tanks alone.”

Small mercies.

“I’ve already sent every MA-121 in the area to intercept.”

“Call them off.”

“What?”

“I do not want to provoke gunfire in that lab. Send the patrols to seal off exits instead.”

“Roger that. Hang on--looks like they’re retreating.”

“As I said. Cut off the exits.” He bit down a gasp as a fresh sting of pain bolted up his side. “Which labs were hit?”

“Beta and Delta.”

“I’m going to assess the damage. Keep me posted on enemy movements.”

“Yes sir.”

Wesker cut the connection. Delta lab was nearest to him, but first, he had to patch up these bullet holes. He took an emergency first-aid kit from a nearby room and applied a large gauze pad to his side. Anyone aware of his abilities would no doubt find the bandage suspicious. Leaving the weeping necrotic flesh on display would look even worse.

By the time he had finished his hasty patch and gone on his way, the emergency lights had switched off. His earpiece buzzed again.

“Two of the intruders managed to escape. We’ve lost visual. The rest were cut down by our MA-121s or killed by our forces.”

“I think I can guess who escaped,” Wesker muttered. “Casualties?”

“5. All men stationed on the east side, where the Umbrella team broke in. Once the MA-121s were deployed, things went off without a hitch.”

“Good.”

He had reached Delta lab, where bleary-eyed lab techs ran about checking the specimen containers and tapping at the computers. A wave of sudden nausea weakened his knees and made him sway. He rested a hand on a nearby counter to steady himself, his jaw numbing from how hard he clenched it to keep his face straight.

“Dr. Wesker!” Dr. Wyatt, the lab manager, scurried over to him with a clipboard in hand held before him like a shield. “They’ve taken all of our data. Most of the hard drives are just gone, and the rest...” he gestured hopelessly at a nearby monitor.

Every screen in the room displayed the same thing. Instead of HCF’s proprietary in-house operating system with its bland green helix background, the screens had been taken over by a spinning Umbrella logo. In white text blinking at the bottom read the simple message: “Are you still looking for me?”

The stainless steel counter top crumpled under his fingers like an aluminum can, making a horrendous grinding noise that brought all activity in the lab to a screeching halt. Finger by finger Wesker pried his hand from the wreckage, coolly ignoring all the terrified stares.

“Specimens,” he said shortly.

“W-we’re still going through them. The sample cabinets were opened but nothing seems to be missing. Whatever they were looking for, they didn’t find it.”

Wesker curled and uncurled his fingers, watching bruises melt from the fingers while his underling trembled in front of him.

“Carry on,” he said.

Wyatt sagged in his wake after Wesker brushed past him, intent on the door at the back of the lab.

“Have you been hit, sir?” one of the braver security guards asked when he passed by.

“It’s nothing.”

The emblem door was still safely shut. Black scuff marks near the base indicated the Umbrella team had attempted to open it, without success. As expected. This door had been made special to his specifications, after all. Only a very few held the key to opening it. Wesker smirked to himself and turned away, the key in question a comforting weight in his pocket.

“Do not touch the computers any further until our tech experts arrive. I’m going to pursue one of our intruders,” he directed to the room at large without breaking stride. A chorus of ‘yes, sir!’s followed.

Leon’s phone still sat in his pocket. He pulled it out, contemplating the lock screen and its borderline pornographic background once more. After a moment's contemplation, he entered 0-9-9-8 and the phone unlocked.

"Predictable."

The phone’s real background was a generic nature shot of a lake. It held no contacts, no call history, one folder full of incriminating photos of his laboratory, and a generic web browser still open to a google maps search for directions.

Through the pain of his burning side and the irritation of stolen research, he managed a smirk.

“Predictable and careless.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Resident Evil technology is usually a few years ahead of real world tech, so I don't feel too bad about giving Leon essentially a modern smartphone one year before the fist iPhone came out.


	3. In Which Wesker Invades a Hotel Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is nothing but talking with a dash of spiteful burrito eating and some first aid, so I hope you’re all down for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am blown away by how excited you all are for this already! Thank you for the many comments and kudos. I hope you all continue to enjoy this story.

Hunters were bastards. Jill had explained this at length many times, usually any time someone got more than 2 shots of tequila into her, her quiet intensity upped by alcohol into something burning and bitter. Hunters were bastards, and the best thing to do when one of those scaly motherfuckers popped up was to hurl a grenade in its face and run. Now that he had personal experience with the fast, vicious little brutes, Leon had to agree. It had taken most of his flash bangs and all of his grenades to escape that lab with his head still attached.

Escape he had, and he had wasted no time weaving a convoluted trail home to safety. He closed the hotel room door behind him now and melted into it, reflecting on the ache and sting of all his new bruises and gashes. Each wound was like a little badge commemorating a close call, his skin etched with a dozen new reminders to always listen to Jill no matter how drunk she happened to be.

After all of that, he had nothing to show for his grief thanks to a certain blond enemy-with-benefits stealing his phone. Some days survival alone was a victory. _Most_ days, in his line of work. It was a tough job. Which he wasn’t getting paid for. Because this one he’d done solo and against orders.

God, he needed some breakfast. Lucky he had an extra burrito from yesterday chilling in the mini-fridge.

Leon slit his eyes open, drinking in the boring gray and beige of his cheap hotel room. Only then did he notice the rectangle of yellow light which cut across the floor in front of him. His bathroom light was on, and someone was shuffling around inside. Leon took a deep breath and blew it out.

“How did you get here before me?”

“You drive slow,” came the reply. Wesker, of course.

Leon pushed himself off the door and stepped forward so he could peek into the bathroom. Wesker stood at the sink, his discarded shirt folded neatly on the rim of the tub with his sunglasses sitting on top. He looked up from the pair of forceps he had embedded in his flesh, his serpent eyes—so similar to the hunters—locking with Leon's. He raised an eloquent eyebrow.

“I drove like a bat out of hell,” Leon protested. “I just made a few detours in case I was followed.”

Not that it had made much of a difference, apparently. Wesker grinned at him.

“You know, you really shouldn’t use significant dates for your passcode. They’re much too easy to crack.”

Crap, the phone. He’d forgotten that he had used it to get directions. If Wesker had cracked it, then he had definitely deleted all the pictures, if not outright destroyed the device.

“Thanks, I’ll be sure to remember that tip the next time I open a checking account.” He glanced over the rest of the room. “You here alone, or do I have to worry about a gang of armed thugs hiding behind the curtains?”

“You flatter yourself. I don’t need backup to call on you. Truthfully, I wasn't sure you'd be foolish enough to come back here,” Wesker said as he calmly pulled a bullet from under his ribs. The metal _sizzled_ on the way out, a little wisp of steam curling up from the wound. Wesker tossed the offending bullet into the sink and then traded the forceps for a wet cotton swab.

“I thought you'd take the time to pull your bullets out before hunting me down,” Leon said.

“Why should I, when you have a perfectly good sink?”

Leon snorted. He should probably be running, drawing his gun at least, something, if he could just stop staring at the lovely, well-defined musculature of Wesker's bare torso for five seconds. The man had no business looking so good even covered in his own blood and frankly, it was unfair.

 _Wesker--enemy,_ some withered survival instinct in his brain tried to scream. _Dangerous. Probably mad at you._

A choked hiss-growl from Wesker’s throat broke Leon from his staring trance. The tyrant’s lower jaw spasmed under the effort of repressing further noise as he scrubbed out the hole in his side with the swab. The stroke of cotton had cleared some of the blood away, letting Leon get a clear look at the bullet wound. Except it didn’t look like a simple bullet wound. It looked like the flesh had been eaten away, like it had been burned with acid.

Before he could stop to think about it, Leon was stepping forward.

“Christ that looks bad. Do you need help with that?”

Wesker choked out a mirthless chuckle. “You really can’t help yourself, can you? I suppose you take wounded animals home to nurse back to health as well.”

“You know, there’s this thing most humans have--it’s called ‘empathy?’ You should try it sometime.”

“Sounds annoying.” Wesker put the cotton swab down and picked up the forceps again. “I’m more than capable of tending my own wounds, Leon.”

“I’m sure you can. Doesn’t mean you have to.”

Wesker ignored that.

Leon hovered in the entrance-way, off balance and hating it. Some steps of their dance were carefully mapped out. If they met on the job, they tried to fuck each other over. If they met after hours, they just plain fucked. So which was this?

“Well, as long as you’re busy, I’m going to eat something before you start interrogation round two.” Annoyed and defiant, Leon left the bathroom, ignoring Wesker’s incredulous stare. The burrito he’d left in the mini-fridge was still there, and he happily unwrapped it before biting down. If he had to deal with Wesker's bullshit, he was going to do it on a full stomach.

Wesker leaned out from the bathroom, studying the scene with disgruntled bemusement.

“...are you eating that cold?”

“You don't get to judge me, you're a home invader,” Leon told him, and shoved in a large, spiteful helping of cold burrito into his mouth.

Wesker's lip curled, very clearly judging him.

“I suppose I should add ‘dining habits of a college freshman’ to your list of charms.”

“You keep a list, huh? Flattering.”

“It grows by the day,” Wesker replied in an utterly flat tone. He ducked back into the bathroom, leaving Leon to puzzle over whether that had been sarcasm or not.

The burrito probably would have tasted better warm. Leon was too hungry to care. He flopped down on the bed, taking the load off from his sore legs. There was a nasty scratch down one thigh which he ought to see to, probably. From his seated position, he reached out one leg and nudged a curtain aside, just to double check that they were alone.

“It seems I was taking the wrong track before. Clearly, I should have tried to seduce the answers out of you,” Wesker said conversationally.

Dammit. The staring hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“Don’t underestimate my willpower,” he said.

Wesker hummed. “Remind me, which one of us instigated a sexual encounter in the middle of a castle full of zombies?”

“H-hey!” Leon had to pause his articulate retort in order to cough up some bits of ground beef which had nearly tumbled down his windpipe. “That was different,” he protested hoarsely. “I wasn’t expecting to ever cross paths with you again. At least, not without a whole lot of bullet exchanging.”

“Far be it from me to begrudge a man for seizing an opportunity.”

Another bullet clattered into the sink. Leon waited to make sure Wesker had nothing else scandalous to say before taking another cautious bite of his food.

They coexisted in comfortable silence for the rest of Leon’s burrito. Once the food was gone, Leon found it harder and harder to ignore the fervent curses and soft hisses of pain coming from the bathroom. Sighing, he tossed the wrapper into the trash and got up to check on his intruder.

Wesker had twisted around so his back was visible in the mirror, his face a mask of concentration as he groped about for the bullet embedded in his lower back. He seemed to be having trouble navigating the forceps by mirror. His eyes flicked briefly to Leon, and for the first time he seemed uneasy about being watched. There was just no dignified way to dig a bullet out of one’s back.

Leon observed this struggle for a grand total of ten seconds before he couldn’t take it anymore. “Just let me,” he said, coming forward with one hand held out.

Frustrated, Wesker wheeled around and slammed a palm onto the rim of the sink. The ceramic groaned warningly under the strength of the hit, a crack appearing where it joined the wall. Wesker glared into the mirror with his eyes flaring red. He looked 2 seconds away from punching out the glass.

Throughout this little outburst Leon stayed right where he was, hand held out, and waited. He didn’t flinch when that red glare turned his way, and he didn’t smile when Wesker held out the forceps.

“Wash your hands first.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

It was kinda funny that a man with virus-induced superpowers was still worried about mundane infections, Leon thought as he approached the sink. Maybe it was just force of habit from too long spent studying diseases. He got a good look at the spent bullets in the sink as he soaped up his hands. As he suspected, the lumps of metal had a distinctive green banding he recognized. He had found such ammunition before, rarely, in emergency caches deep within Umbrella labs. They'd been a godsend to him whenever he could find them.

“Anti-BOW rounds,” Leon observed.

“You've seen them before.”

“A couple times. They're some kind of special acid-impregnated rounds, right?”

“Something like that.”

No wonder Wesker was fucked up so badly. Leon couldn’t believe the man had waited until coming all the way here to take the _acid-dispensing bullets_ out of his own flesh. The strength of Wesker’s willpower alone was terrifying.

Leon picked up the forceps and moved behind the other man.

“Quickly, if you please. I don’t need your squeamishness today.”

“Being gentle is not the same as being ‘squeamish’.” Leon rolled his eyes. “Every time we meet, I end up pulling something out of you.”

Wesker made a choked noise that had nothing to do with pain.

“Was that a laugh?” Leon asked.

“Do you not listen to yourself when you speak, or do you say these things on purpose?”

“No idea what you’re talking about,” Leon replied, his grin hidden behind Wesker’s back.

The third bullet came out hissing, and as Leon deposited it in the sink he wondered if he shouldn’t be wearing gloves for this.

“You don’t much like playing to expectations, do you Leon?” Wesker asked him as he handed over the mystery bottle and the cotton swab.

“Hm?”

“The brave hero comes home to find a villain lying in wait, only to ignore the threat, eat breakfast, and then return to offer first aid.”

“Heh. Ask Ramon Salazar about just how much I like other people’s scripts.”

“I have a feeling you’re referencing a terrible joke, so I’m going to ignore--” Wesker broke off on a pained moan, his hands clutching the sink rim.

“Sorry, I should have warned you,” said Leon, who had just started scraping out the steaming wound with the cotton swab. “What’s on this, anyway?”

“J-just a sodium bicarbonate solution. To neutralize the acid.”

“You don’t have to be all stoic with me, you know. I know this hurts like a bitch.”

Wesker took in a shaky breath and didn’t respond, so Leon just kept talking, hoping to distract him.

“One time when I was a kid, I got stung by a scorpion while we were visiting a cousin. I guess it was venomous, ‘cuz it ended up rotting a little chunk out of my leg. I think I fainted when they had to pack that wound with cotton.”

“Is this why you’re avoiding Nevada?”

“It’s not my favorite state.”

Leon put the cotton swab down and picked up one of the gauze pads piled on the counter.

“Why did you really come here?” he asked as he pressed the pad over the wound. “You hate letting anyone see you vulnerable.”

“Put this on it first,” Wesker directed, pulling a red and green herb mix from the medicine cabinet. Leon took the mixture and smeared it over the pad. “And you think this is vulnerable? A licker could withstand more damage than this.”

“Even if your lab was burning down, I’m sure you’ve got safehouses you could use to patch yourself up. Why come straight here?”

“My lab is still standing, thank you. I wanted to catch you before you ran. There’s something we need to discuss.”

“I’m not giving up my informant.”

“Not that, though I do still wish to know where the leak is among my people.”

Leon rubbed the tape down gently, helping it to adhere to the skin. He lingered, one hand pressed flat to Wesker’s back as he inspected his own work. It was odd to see Wesker in bandages; the man had never needed them before, even after his arm had caught fire. Wesker turned suddenly under his hand, startling him.

“Knowing you, I suppose you want to shut down the research you just saw,” Wesker said.

“Your research.”

“My lab,” Wesker corrected. “Do you know who I work for?”

“H.C.F., last I checked.”

“You do do your homework.”

“No one knows very much about H.C.F. They were one of Umbrella’s top rivals--that’s all the reason I need to take them down.”

“I expected no less.” Wesker leaned in close to him, voice lowering to a rumble. “If you wait to destroy H.C.F. by my timetable, I will help you.”

The stir of breath on his face, vibrating with that low purr, sent a rush of heat and blood down somewhere that was not productive for straight thinking. He struggled to process just what Wesker was offering.

“You're planning to betray your employers?"

“They are more like Umbrella than they want to admit, with many of the same bad habits. I would rather take them out before they cause another Raccoon City level accident.”

“But not yet.”

“I still have some need of their resources. It won’t be much longer. Soon enough, their usefulness will run out.”

"Just how many companies have you joined, used, and destroyed from within?" Leon asked, his eyes narrow.

"This will be the third."

"Christ, you’re like a parasite."

Wesker’s eyebrows rose in genuine surprise.

“I suppose I’ve been called worse.”

“If you’re really worried about future outbreaks, why work for these companies at all?” Leon demanded. He found it very, very difficult to believe that this man gave a damn about how many cities his creations wiped off the map.

"It's what I'm good at, it makes good money, and it gets me closer to my own goals. So why shouldn't I?”

“Ethics? Common human decency?”

“Myths,” Wesker replied. “Little social lies we tell each other to make us feel a false safety.”

“Why don’t you tell me why I should give you time to finish whatever nightmare you’re making now,” Leon growled.

“In case you haven’t pieced it together already, H.C.F. has friends in your government. If you move against them now, you will be all alone,” Wesker bared his teeth, “and you will have me to contend with."

"Careful, Wesker. I might just beat those odds. Last I checked, you’re 0-3 when it comes to taking me down."

"Three? You're not counting the bedroom games at the hotel, I hope."

"It wasn't bedroom games when you were trying to smash my skull into the wall."

"How boring and vanilla your sex life must have been before you met me."

“My point is, things haven’t worked out well for you when we’ve tangled in the past.”

“Do try to be practical, Leon. You can’t keep up the one man army routine forever, and my assistance is nothing to scoff at.”

Both those statements were true, and he knew it. The offer was tempting. Wesker would have all kinds of juicy insider information, maybe even an actual plan for destroying HCF with more bullet points than just “find people in charge” and “arrest them.” On the other hand, knowingly leaving Wesker up to his own devices went against his every principle. He had vowed to scrub these viruses from the face of the earth, could he really stand back and let Wesker finish a new one?

Sensing his hesitation like a lion scenting blood, Wesker pressed forward even further, his lips brushing the shell of Leon’s ear.

“Fifty labs located all over the globe, and I know the location of every one of them. You cannot hope to dismantle their organization as thoroughly as I can. So let me ask you one more time: will you take them down with me?”

He was good. They’d only met a few scattered times over a year, and he already knew what buttons to push. Yet, there was still one thing which Wesker had underestimated: Leon’s bullheaded stubbornness.

He put his own mouth up to Wesker’s ear, brushing their cheeks together on the way, and whispered: “I. Don’t. Work. For you.”

Wesker drew back and rolled his eyes, hissing his frustration.

“ _Think_ about it, will you? I know you’ve got a brain in that pretty head.”

“No promises,” Leon replied. He let his tone turn playful, his hands rising to trail up Wesker’s chest. “What was that you were saying--about heroes and villains? Making a deal with the villain doesn’t sound very heroic.”

Wesker tilted his head, a little glimmer lit in his eyes. That was all the warning Leon got before a strong hand seized him by the front of his shirt and slammed him up against the wall--gently, by tyrant standards.

“You know I hate it when you defy me,” Wesker purred.

“Is hate really the right word?” Leon retorted. He pressed a knee against Wesker’s crotch, feeling the interest already growing there. Wesker shot forward with a growl, slamming their mouths together in a brutal kiss. Alright, so they were playing rough today. Leon could handle that.

The kiss gained steam, heating to the point that normally sharp minds melted just so, enough to forget the web of entanglements surrounding them. They forgot negotiations, and bioweapons, and enemies--and wounds.

Wesker crumpled with a little pained noise so soft Leon could only feel it through his lips. His feet abruptly dropped back to solid floor, and he suddenly had over a hundred pounds of tyrant pinning him to the wall. Trying to hold a grown male adult off the ground when his obliques were mincemeat on one side had not been Wesker’s brightest idea. Leon grimaced in sympathy, his hands automatically coming up to steady the other man.

“Okay, okay, easy. I guess we should give your body a few hours to repair those holes first. We can try again later.”

Wesker planted his elbow up on the wall and sagged on it, eyes dull.

“Today has been nonstop frustrations.”

“And it’s only 3:30 am,” Leon offered brightly. He rubbed soothing circles with his thumb into Wesker’s shoulder, his eyes drawing back to the white bandage stark against the other man’s skin. “You can stay. If you want. Assuming you didn’t tell anyone else at Ethics Optional Inc. where my hotel is. My flight isn’t until 11:30.”

“For once, I suppose I’ve nothing better to do.” Wesker’s gaze dropped to Leon’s arm. He took the limb in hand, turning it over for a better look at the slash marks winding around the tricep. “I hope you’ve at least sprayed these.”

“I was going to dress them properly, until a certain someone distracted me.”

“Hm. Come,” Wesker directed, tugging Leon towards the sink again. “As long as I’m here, I might as well return the favor.”

Later, as the two lay side by side in the lone queen bed, listening to the night time symphony of crickets, passing cars, and distant drunken yelling, Wesker spoke.

"I wonder. If I were ever actually vulnerable, what would you do?"

"Haven't we been there, done that?"

“Suppose we weren’t stranded together in enemy territory and relying on each other for survival. If you well and truly had me at your mercy, what then?”

“I’d take you in.”

“To who?” Wesker barked out a laugh. “Your government? You’ve tried so hard to keep them from getting a hold of viral samples. What do you think they would do if they had me?”

Exactly what they had tried to do to Sherry: a great gauntlet of tests and poking and prodding until they teased out the secrets of his virus. If they succeeded, they would have the means to create an army of supersoldiers. The idea of Wesker’s blood in Simmons’ hands was a chilling one.

“I’d...think of something,” Leon said.

Wesker hummed, skeptical, and let his eyes fall shut.

Another quandary to add to the list. Some days, Leon wished he hadn’t let his world get so gray.


	4. In Which Leon Misses ALL of the Quick Time Events

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wesker learns why you should never let Leon drive.

_Bad Moon Hotel, 4:48 am_

Wesker had experienced a great amount of difficulty sleeping ever since the night he died. Part of it was the minor enhancement to the senses which made every heartbeat of every nearby warm body thunder in his ears like a percussion band, part of it was the necessary paranoia of a man who counted more enemies than friends. And part of it, which he would never admit to anyone, was the nightmares.

Not of dying, nor of any of the many, many horrors he had both faced and created. No, his nightmares were all of the same event: being reborn. Death had been so simple, like sinking into an ice water bath, his awareness gradually unraveling as his dying body numbed. Rebirth had been the same but reversed and excruciatingly slow, nerves coming online one by one in screaming agony as the damage so slowly healed. In his nightmares, full health and mobility never returned to him. He hung suspended, the pain a growing crescendo he could neither ease nor escape. It was not a pleasant experience.

So he was only dozing where he lay beside Leon, listening to the agent breathe and waiting for his flesh to knit. This was close enough to resting for him. To his amusement, Leon was already snoring softly next to him. Sometimes he wished for a time machine just so he could go back and tell the Leon of 8 months ago how much he would one day come to trust him.

Leon, too, had nightmares. On the rare occasion the agent was tired enough to fall asleep beside him, Wesker was usually startled out of a light doze by a sudden kick to his side. There was no need to ask what it was that made the man toss and turn so--his file had outlined enough trauma for ten lifetimes. Wesker had strategically chosen the side of the bed which put his good side towards Leon, just in case.

At the moment, Leon's face was slack in slumber, his lips parted, heartbeat slow. It seemed unlikely that he would have nightmares tonight. He appeared so harmless. Just looking at him, one would never guess just how troublesome this lone human managed to be. Once again, Leon had majorly disrupted his plans, this time without even realizing it.

Wesker had not intended to discuss HCF with him so soon. Leon was supposed to butt up against HCF's power and influence a few times, to gain a real appreciation for just how indomitable a foe he faced. Only then, when frustration and utter hopelessness seethed inside him, had Wesker planned to swoop in with his offer. Even accounting for Leon's stubbornness, he had been confident he could secure the agent's partnership that way.

Leon wasn't supposed to find Wesker's own lab first. He wasn't supposed to move on HCF until Wesker was ready for it. And Wesker definitely wasn't supposed to be attacked by Umbrella's dregs.

Ah, well, Wesker was nothing if not a master at adapting plans on the fly. Their little heart to heart by the sink might not have convinced Leon yet, but the seeds had been planted. Every time he offered, Leon hesitated a little longer before rejecting him. Eventually that stubborn streak would wear down, like a boulder in a river.

The bullet holes were nearly healed. A further ten minutes and his body would be perfectly whole, as if the gunshots had never happened. He could wake Leon now, pick up where they had left off before his failing body rudely interrupted. Yet he hesitated. Peaceful moments like this were rare in his life, and while he wouldn’t seek them out, he did like to savor them when they arose.

A new note joined the nighttime symphony, as out of place as a kazoo in an orchestra: the soft creak of a footstep near the foot of the bed. The snoring beside him died out, though Leon did not move. Wesker cracked his eyes open, careful to shutter their glow with his eyelashes.

Moonlight glinted off the smooth curves of a gas mask and the polished metal of a pistol, apparently hovering in the darkness. Mask and gun bobbed closer, approaching Leon’s side of the bed. He did not need to see through the dark to guess what uniform the shadowed figure was wearing, or what logo would adorn the back of their flak vest. So, he’d been followed here. He would have to take more precautions in the future.

With only the softest whisper, he sat up in the bed. As far as he could hear, only one soldier was inside the room. There would be more—outside in the hall, blocking off exits, waiting in ambush. It would be best to take care of this one quickly and quietly. He opened his eyes fully, let the red glow of them spill out over the comforter and indulged in a moment of sadistic pleasure over the way the mask whipped towards him and froze.

The pistol twitched towards him, much too slow. Like a pouncing tiger, he vaulted over Leon’s body and caught the intruder’s throat in one hand, driving it into the carpet and crushing it with one brutal, efficient movement. Leon dropped to the floor beside him a second later, landing crouched on one knee with a blade glinting in one hand.

Their eyes met, and Leon gave him a small nod. Wesker dragged the body over to the square of moonlight filtering in through the window, and turned it over. Just as he had anticipated, he found the Umbrella logo sewn into the man’s vest.

“I hate it when you bring work home with you,” Leon grumbled under his breath.

“There will be more,” Wesker cautioned.

“At least I have pants this time.” Leon rummaged beneath the bed and pulled out a duffel bag, which he slung over one shoulder. “I guess now we know who they were after last Christmas.”

“Yes.” Wesker had already guessed as much, the moment he had confirmed HUNK still worked for Spencer. As swiftly and silently as possible, he crept to the bathroom. His shirt, boots, and other affects were still balanced on the tub rim, where he’d left them. These he scooped up, and returned to the bed to dress himself. Leon pouted a little as Wesker shrugged into his shirt, though he quickly schooled his expression into something more professional when Wesker looked at him. The agent thought he was so stealthy with his lingering glances. It was adorable.

“Your wounds?” Leon whispered.

In answer, Wesker tore off the bandages, letting Leon get a good eyeful of the smooth, unmarred skin before buttoning up his shirt. There was still a little underlying tissue damage--bruising and scar tissue, mainly, which would recover faster with movement. It would not hinder him.

The door to the hallway was almost certainly under guard, which left only one possible exit from the room. Wesker pulled the half-drawn curtain all the way back, exposing the window. They were on the third floor--easy enough for him to jump. The dark alley below was deserted.

Leon, apparently thinking along the same lines, appeared at his elbow and levered the single-hung window open. He fed first one leg and then the other through the gap, hands clinging tight to the frame as he lowered himself slowly through. The toes of his boots skidded lightly against the brick wall, yet he managed to hold on.

Outside, a low chatter of voices approached the door. They wouldn’t have long before the others came looking for their scout. Wesker kept one eye on the door and the other on Leon’s progress. The Umbrella squad were sure to have more of those special anti-BOW rounds, and this time, Wesker was resolved not to be caught off guard with a shot to the back.

When he’d climbed fully out of the window, Leon tilted his head back and sized up his surroundings, mouth creased in a light frown.

“Should’ve requested the room with the balcony,” he muttered.

“You could--” Wesker began, and then stopped, because Leon had already swung over to the neighboring window ledge. That worked, he supposed.

Snorting, Wesker leaned down and planted a hand flat to the building wall. Then, the other. Unlike Leon, whose hands had to wrap white-kunckled around whatever holds he could find, Wesker was able to simply crawl down the wall as easily as if it were floor.

“Have I told you lately that you’re a fucking vampire?” Leon asked him.

“Not in the past 24 hours.” He crawled out from the window head first, climbing down the wall until his toes were out and also clinging to flat brick. It was actually a trait he shared with lickers, this seeming ability to defy gravity. It didn’t actually work on every surface, but brick was more than rough enough. He began the careful process of turning himself around.

“I think this room’s empty. I might be able to wedge my file in the gap and--”

“Leon,” Wesker interrupted. He climbed up beside the other man, and smirked at the envious glance he received. “Are you forgetting you’re with a man who can jump 4 stories?”

“Oh. Is the Wesker elevator online?”

“It is if you stop calling me that.”

Leon smiled, the warmth and genuineness of it giving Wesker pause. No one had looked at him like that since the STARS days, and most certainly not when they knew what kind of man he really was. Just another confusing aspect to Leon’s behavior to add to the list of inquiries. To him, Leon was like a jigsaw puzzle with all the pieces cut slightly off, so nothing fit together the way it should.

Gently, Wesker wound an arm around the man’s waist and peeled him off the wall. Leon slung a casual arm around his shoulders, hanging on and yet not. They jumped to the ground. The impact was not as effortless as it appeared. Even with his enhanced muscle and bone, his joints still crumpled a little under the strain. The damage was so light it healed in seconds.

The alley was clear. Leon pulled away from him, already on alert.

“Thanks baby,” he threw behind him, grinning when Wesker twitched.

“Your timing has gotten better,” Wesker observed. “You waited until we were safe on the ground to say that.”

“See? I can learn.”

Leon pulled his gun out, holding it upright in a safety position while he peeked around the building corner.

“Christ, it’s dark.”

“I can see their van. Over there, across the street.”

“Movement?”

“Two by the front doors. One in the lot. I can’t tell if the van is occupied from here.”

They left the safety of the alley, taking cover behind the nearest of the cars in the lot. It wasn’t the biggest hotel, nor the nicest, and the lot only had about 10 cars in it. Leon had apparently gone for the cheapest, closest option available.

A tug on his shoulder. Leon pointed to a white sedan near the end of the line and mouthed ‘mine.’ Wesker glanced over at the visitor parking, where his own black buick sat. Reaching it would be trickier, but it was fast and good at cornering, perfect for losing pursuers.

Then he noticed the dark shape running away from it.

He pulled Leon down behind an SUV seconds before the car exploded. A wave of heat and pressure washed over them, disturbing the other cars and setting off an alarm or two.

Godammit. He had been fond of that car.

Leon pulled out his own set of keys and waggled them, expression sardonic with a faint touch of sympathy. Behind him, a tire bounced across the pavement. Wesker sighed and inclined his head. It seemed that Leon would be driving.

They reached the white sedan without incident and piled inside. The interior still smelled of fabric shampoo, and was much too clean inside to have been in Leon’s care for long. It must have been a rental.

They peeled out of the parking lot, Leon neglecting the headlights until they were out on the street to buy them a little more time. The lone man in the parking lot attempted to run after them, firing wildly at their backside. Him, they left behind on the street corner. The van which lurched out to follow them was a more persistent problem. Two bullets zinged into the back of the car, and a third grazed the side mirror.

“They’re aiming for the tires,” Wesker observed.

“You handle it, I’ll lose them.”

Wesker already had his gun in hand. He rolled the window down and leaned out to return fire.

Leon had not been exaggerating when he claimed to drive like a bat out of hell. His movement patterns were just as lurching and irregular as a bat in flight. A drunk one, with a hole in one wing. It made it exceptionally hard to steady his aim and return fire on the perusing van. Leon spun so suddenly around one corner that Wesker, who had ducked in to reload, toppled sideways and smashed into the driver’s shoulder.

“ _Leon!_ ” he barked.

“Sorry,” Leon grit out, just barely lurching the car to the right before they plowed into a parked truck. “You should probably buckle up.”

“I _doubt_ that will help,” Wesker replied tersely. He struggled upright and leaned out the window once more, this time with a very firm grip on the door frame to steady himself. He lined up his sights with the windshield of the pursuing van, aiming for the driver.

The car jerked to the left again, this time with a crumple of metal, and if it weren't for his grip on the door he definitely would have gone flying. Wesker twisted, straining to see the road in front of them.

"What did we hit?"

"Never mind! Just shoot them!"

"I am _trying_ , if you would just--" A bullet whizzed past his ear, prompting him to duck back into the car. Which gave him a front row seat as Leon crossed over a street corner, grazing the streetlight and narrowly missing a mailbox. “If you would drive in a straight line for 10 seconds, I could hit them,” Wesker bit out.

“Do you want to lose them or do you want to let them blow out our tires?”

“Five seconds. If you can manage that.”

“Fine.”

Wesker leaned out the window again, and the bucking car finally stilled around him. He sent three bullets to the van’s driver and two towards the front tire in quick succession. It was impossible to tell whether he hit the driver, but the tire blew. Leon celebrated the hit by fishtailing around another sharp corner and then pulling into an ally.

The van passed them, wheeling to one side uncontrollably due to the blown tire. Leon kept on down the alley all the way to the end, where they emerged on another street and kept on. Wesker collapsed back into the passenger seat, staring dully forward as Leon continued his peculiar and heart-attack inducing mode of racing.

He didn’t even want to think about what might have happened if there was any traffic at this time of night.

* * *

Leon brought the car to an ungraceful stop beside a streetlamp. Alright, into the streetlamp. He hadn’t been paying much attention as he pulled over.

“I think we lost ‘em,” he said, scanning the empty road behind them through the rear view mirror. When only silence answered him, he looked to his companion.

Wesker was staring at Leon over the rims of his dark shades, wearing a very strange expression.

“What?” Leon prompted.

“You were going to be a traffic cop,” Wesker said slowly.

“Yeah? What about it?” It was amazing to him that the other man even remembered that little detail. Raccoon City felt like an age ago. Leon had never gotten to write up a single ticket, thanks to the outbreak.

A punch drunk little cackle exploded from Wesker’s mouth. Leon had never heard nor expected to hear such a sound from the man who had elevated stone-facing to an artform.

“Oh, Irons would have had a field day with you.”

“Are you trying to insult my driving?”

Wesker very deliberately directed his gaze to the streetlamp bent over the hood of the rental car.

“I drive _fine_ when I’m not _being shot at_!”

“There’s reckless pursuit driving and then there’s playing chicken with every obstacle lining the road side.”

“You got such a problem with it, you can drive next time.”

Not that he wanted there to be a next time or anything. Mad car chases with this man at his side were not a habit he wanted to get in to.

Lucky for him, Wesker was distracted with double-checking for pursuers. He had twisted around in his seat, sunglasses shoved down to the end of his nose with one finger resting on their rim. His visible eyes were red slits.

“You do seem to have lost them, for now. So. I suppose this is where we part ways.”

“What?”

But Wesker was already getting out of the car. Leon scrambled to untangle himself from the seatbelt and stand up, hopping a little on one leg to turn around.

“Where are you going?” Leon demanded.

“To finish off our little pests. You should head home to D.C. You wouldn’t want to miss your flight.”

“You can’t expect me to just walk away when there’s Umbrella agents out here.” He wasn’t worried about Wesker, the man could handle himself. He was worried that if more firefights broke out, there was a high chance innocent civilians would get caught up in the crossfire, and neither Wesker nor Umbrella were going to give a shit about them.

“This is work business, and you don’t work for me, as you’ve made perfectly clear. As long as you stubbornly remain a government lapdog, I can’t trust you to have my back.”

“That is bull--”

A blur of black whipped down the street, the air stirred in its wake tossing Leon’s hair up. He was now glowering at empty street. Wesker had run.

“...shit.” Leon let his arms fall down to his sides. “You son of a bitch.”

Couldn’t trust him, his ass. Every time Wesker got injured he kept coming to Leon to fix it. Like one of those ravens that had figured out a particular human would help take thorns out of their wing. Well, whatever. It was a very unsubtle jab and he wasn’t gonna rise to it.

As if he would even care about the implication that Wesker didn’t trust him. They were enemies. They _shouldn’t_ trust each other. He didn’t care. Really.

And he definitely wasn’t frustrated from Umbrella cockblocking him, _again._

He took his bag from the car and left the vehicle behind. The Umbrella team would be looking for that car, and he wasn’t going to be caught standing next to the crash like an idiot.

A soft wind blew down the empty street, one lone plastic bag cartwheeling down the sidewalk across from him. The only lights on, aside from the streetlamps, were the distant windows of a Waffle House. He stood out like a sore thumb, and he didn’t like it. Leon ducked out of sight into an empty alleyway, his eyes on the street.

The muffled ringing of his cell phone made him damn near jump out of his skin. Inside his bag, his real phone--his work phone--demanded his attention. The one Wesker had taken was just a burner phone he used for unofficial missions.

He fished the phone out. Hunnigan’s number blazed on the screen, and the ringing suddenly sounded angry. He frowned at it, frozen in indecision, until the rings ran out.

The DSO office could track this phone, they would know he’d gone here against orders. Sighing, he shut the phone off. He knew he would have to face the music sometime, he just didn’t want to deal with it right now. When he got back to D.C., he could tell her some bullshit about getting into town and then changing his mind last minute. He hadn’t brought the phone into the labs, so they couldn’t prove that he’d done anything wrong. It didn’t matter how suspicious it all looked. He wasn’t on assignment. He could run off to Oregon for a weekend if he wanted.

Something stung his neck. It was so fast and hurt so little, he was ready to brush it off as an insect bite until he turned his head slightly and felt the feathered tube brush his shoulder. With his off hand he grabbed at his own throat, found the object, and tore it out. It was a tranquilizer dart.

His heart tried to pound, but already the drug was slithering through his system, slowing his reactions. He staggered, caught himself with one hand on a rough stone wall. His muscles seemed to be turning into jelly.

“Sh...shit...” he cursed. With clumsy fingers he tried to wrestle his phone out of his pocket and turn it on. The AT&T logo came up on screen--too slow, everything was too slow. He was falling.

The concrete surged up to meet him, cradled his cheek and chest with a dull blow. The phone--where was the phone? It had bounced from his hand. He tried to push himself up, but his arms felt like clubs.

A boot settled beside his ribs. Above him, the red lenses of a gas mask glared downward.

“Secondary target acquired.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have long forgotten where I found this information but yes, Leon “curses every vehicle he touches” Kennedy came to Raccoon to be a traffic cop. So really, the RPD dodged a bullet on that one.


	5. In Which there is a Cafe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oblivious to Leon's plight, Wesker goes to a business meeting as usual.

Some cliches, Wesker mused, had a grain of truth at their heart. For example: the old trope about two agents meeting at a cafe to exchange information. Cafes were ideal for several reasons. The informal atmosphere made it easy to drop in and leave when needed, the crowd was easy to blend with, and the background noise covered conversation, hampering eavesdroppers.

Ada was waiting for him at an outdoor table, her chin perched delicately on one hand as she gazed across the street, ignoring the book in her lap. As always, she dressed in red and black, with a short red cocktail dress and thigh high black boots. The boots had been a gift from him many Christmases ago, and it pleased him to see her wear them. His logic had been that if she would insist on running missions in high heels, she should at least have some leg protection. He doubted she saw them that way.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning.” She looked up, as if she hadn’t already known he was there, and smiled lazily while he set his espresso down on the table and seated himself.

“How was traffic?” she asked.

“Abysmal. My usual vehicle is out of commission. The new one does not handle half as well.”

“How irritating.”

He took a sip of his drink, destroying the delicate leaf shape the barista had crafted into the foam.

“Well?” he asked. Ada was fond of small talk, but he would only indulge her so far.

For the past few months, Ada had been cozying up to an ex-Umbrella executive who Wesker believed was still supporting Spencer. Playing girlfriend was her favorite tactic, and while her methods were slow, she had a way of producing results he could never get elsewhere.

“It’s been going well. He doesn’t suspect a thing. You’d think a man in his position would be a little more cautious. No leads on the lord himself, yet, but I did find something else that might be of interest.”

She produced a thumb drive from a secret compartment in the book and slid it across to him. Head cocked, he picked the device up. It was only 2GB, it couldn’t have held much.

“What is this?”

“A list of Umbrella facilities that were never entered into the U.M.F.-013 database.”

“Hm. Secret even from White Umbrella.”

“Since you haven’t found him in any of his family’s known estates, maybe he’s at one of these properties. I did a little research on my own and found that some of these labs are still getting chemical shipments, including one right next door in Montana.”

Chemical shipments could only mean one of two things: a colossal bureaucratic error that somehow hadn’t been caught after several years, or active research taking place. Perhaps he should pay a visit to this Montana facility. If it really was the closest of Spencer’s hideouts, then that Umbrella strike team might have retreated there with his data.

“You’ve done a fine job. I’ll have your fee wired to the usual account,” he said, slipping the drive into his front pocket. The words were a tacit dismissal, yet Ada wasn’t leaving. She hummed her satisfaction and then leaned forward on her elbows, her dark, unreadable eyes intent on his.

“So, how are things in paradise?” she asked.

Ah. Of course, she wouldn’t be able to resist discussing her favorite subject before leaving.

“You must be talking about that Leon fellow.”

“Oh, dear, we’re back to ‘that Leon fellow.’ What did he do?”

“Just a little breaking and entering at 3 in the morning. Terrible habit of his.” He fixed her with a penetrating stare. "You wouldn't happen to be the little bird who led him to my lab, would you?"

"You have a lab here?" she asked, all affected innocence. Her coy smile didn’t shift a millimeter under his cold stare.

"Had," He corrected, unmoved by her display. "Though that was not Leon's fault. We had another, less charming visitor while he was there."

"Hmm. It wouldn't be a certain someone who hates the rain, would it?"

"Perhaps."

"What did they get?"

"Only data. They looked through our samples but did not take any. I assume they were searching for something specific."

"And Leon?"

"Cut his visit short and slipped out."

She smirked. He was feeling diplomatic enough to ignore it.

“That was the last time you saw him?”

“I have not sought him out since that time,” he said, which was true enough. “I’ve been too busy trying to put my lab back together.”

“How long ago was that?”

“About a fortnight. Why do you ask?”

“That makes you the last person to have contact with him,” she said. Her tone was light--too light, and it belied the sudden tension in her shoulders. Ada rarely showed outright hostility. It was always hidden, coiling under her skin, so only a trained eye could catch it. The sweeter she talked, the more trouble you were in.

“Does it? Is that a veiled accusation I hear?”

“You two were getting along so well,” she replied airily. “I hope a little breaking and entering hasn’t soured things between you.”

“It would take more than that,” he grumbled. He still hadn’t forgotten--or forgiven--the loss of all the specimens at Arcadia. Even so, he was generously allowing Leon to continue living. Leon ought to be more grateful. “Are you telling me even his handlers can’t reach him?”

“The DSO has him listed as AWOL. He’s not answering his phone. He hasn’t been to his apartment. None of his friends know where he is, either.”

“And this is unusual?”

“It’s unusual for him to vanish for this long. _Someone_ should know where he is. All anyone can tell me is, two weeks ago he landed here in Oregon. After that, he vanished off the face of the Earth.”

Wesker’s lips twitched. It sounded like he was her last resort for information, and she clearly wasn’t happy about having to confront him.

"Are you afraid that I have him locked in a dark cell somewhere, for my pleasure?"

"If you do, and you haven’t invited me, then you’re being very selfish." She sipped her tea. "That’s a much more pleasant scenario than the one I'm afraid of."

So that was the source of her tension. She assumed he might have tired of Leon’s meddling and chosen to remove the nuisance permanently. It would be the logical thing to do--if he were playing the short game.

“As amusing as that might be, I’m afraid it doesn’t align with my current plans. The last I saw Leon, he was pouting next to a car he had crashed. I really don’t know where he went after that. I was busy elsewhere.”

He drummed his fingers on the table beside the cup. Not for a moment had he considered that Leon could be in any danger from the Umbrella forces. Surely, with all the agent had been through, he could handle himself against a small strike team. And hadn’t they been after _Wesker?_

“Did he crash _another_ car?” Ada asked.

“Makes a habit of it, does he?”

“Yes. I’m starting to think it might be a curse.”

“I’d call it bad driving.”

“It’s the one area where he just can’t stand up under pressure.” She shook her head. “Give him a gun and an infected mob, and he’s cool as a cucumber. Put him behind a steering wheel and, well. You’re asking for disaster.”

“Yet somehow, he always survives. Perhaps his plane simply went down in the wilderness somewhere between Oregon and D.C.”

“I already checked for any reports of plane crashes,” she said, utterly serious. She must not be kidding about that ‘curse.’

“Thorough as ever.”

He wondered what she would do if he ever did kill Leon. Would she try to murder him directly? Or would she smile in his face, walk away, and quietly orchestrate his ruin behind his back? He did not expect she could succeed either way, but even so, it would make for an unpleasant diversion. Perhaps it would be best to reassure her, in his own way, that she needn’t begin planning his demise just yet.

“I almost killed him at Arcadia, you know,” Wesker told her, and took an unconcerned sip of his espresso. She did not look surprised.

“Was that before or after you gave him those love bites?” Ada asked.

“After. His usefulness had run out, and I knew the smart thing to do was to remove him before he made a nuisance of himself.”

“He escaped from you,” Ada guessed.

“I let him go.” It was almost painful to admit. Owning up to a lapse in ability was one thing. Telling her about a lapse in judgment, an act of mercy, that was something else. It felt too much like exposing a vulnerable underbelly. “Over the time we worked together, I came to understand his....appeal. Your attitude and past actions make much more sense in retrospect.”

“Oh?”

“Dallying with that man is a risk, yet it doesn’t feel dangerous. It feels...” he stopped himself. Ada was not his friend. They had known each other so long that their relationship was like an old cardigan, comfortable and familiar, but they were not friends. He had spent too much time around Leon, had gotten too used to hemorrhaging his private thoughts to someone who didn’t use them against him.

“It feels safe,” Ada finished for him. “Maybe the safest you’ve ever felt.”

"People in our professions are never safe."

She nodded. "But, the illusion is compelling, isn't it?"

“He is quite compelling,” Wesker grumbled under his breath. She heard it, and she laughed.

“It’s nice to watch Leon happen to someone else for a change.” She was smiling again, at ease now. Apparently she had decided to believe him, or at least pretend so.

“Is he the reason you’ve grown that pesky conscience?” Wesker asked her. “You used to be so much more agreeable. Once upon a time, no mission would phase you.”

“Maybe I have changed. It isn’t all his fault.” One of her hands briefly touched her side, a motion she seemed almost unaware of. “It was Raccoon City. It’s not as easy to play games with bioweapons once you see what they can do.”

“I suppose you’re right. That incident changed everything.”

“Are you agreeing with me? That’s rich, considering you still sell your bioweapons to the highest bidder.”

“Not the highest. I am more selective than that. My field tests are more controlled than they may appear.”

“You’ve never had control. That’s the illusion. Didn’t Umbrella teach you anything?”

“...did you just quote Jurassic Park at me?”

“It seemed appropriate,” she replied, unrepentant.

“Hardly.” He glowered. He hated that movie and its typical Hollywood anti-science message. If he never had Ian Malcolm quoted at him again it would be too soon.

Something beeped from her thigh. Ada pulled the device from her thigh holster and looked it over.

“Sorry, I have to take this. It’s been nice catching up.”

“Always a pleasure,” he said to her retreating back. One of these days, he needed to dig up just who her new employer was.

So, Leon was missing. The news almost wouldn’t parse. Leon always landed on his feet, no matter how hard life threw him. If Ada was correct with her dates, then that meant Leon had been missing since roughly the time they separated. He had chosen not to tell Ada about that second rendezvous, the second attack, simply because it wasn’t her business. She didn’t know that Umbrella had continued to pursue them. She didn’t know that Wesker had left Leon behind.

If Umbrella had him, if Spencer _knew_ , then they would have gloated by now. And why would they want him, anyway? They wouldn’t think to use Leon against him. Spencer should know better.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and stared at the lock screen for a while, debating. Unlike Leon’s scandalous background, his own phone used a simple black background with the company logo in one corner. Clean, professional, free of distractions. He glared into the white logo, uncharitably classifying Leon as one big throbbing distraction with whom he was grossly reluctant to part.

But that wasn’t true. Leon was an asset, a potential partner, and fretting about whether to check on him was causing more disruption than simply acting would. He called Leon’s number.

It rang. And rang. And rang. Eventually, there was a click, and a dull female computer voice asked him to leave a message.

Not conclusive evidence of anything, that, Wesker thought to himself as his fingers drummed on the table. Leon could have chosen not to answer because he didn’t recognize the number. The agent wasn’t aware Wesker had stolen his number from the DSO’s files.

The phoneline hummed in Wesker’s ear, patiently awaiting a message. He already felt ridiculous just for calling, yet if Leon truly wasn’t answering just because he assumed this to be a spam call...

“Leon. You’ve been absent for a while. Our mutual friend is growing concerned. Perhaps you should give her a call?”

That would do. It gave nothing away, and a third party who recognized his voice could easily mistake the message for a veiled threat.

If Leon had gotten himself into trouble, he could no doubt get himself back out of it. The man had an uncanny talent for surviving against the odds. It was a large part of his appeal, if Wesker were honest with himself. No matter what happened, he could trust Leon to get through it.

But. Supposing something had happened, and Leon had chosen the wrong moment to prove he was only another frail human after all...

 _“It is beneath your concern.”_ The memory bubbled up at once like pus from under a scab: the cool, clipped voice of his old guardian, the sneer below his pale blue eyes, the soft crying of a dying child muffled through the door. It was an old memory, from the days when Wesker was small enough that adults looked like giants. “ _If they’re not strong enough to survive, then they weren’t worth knowing.”_

Wesker shoved the phone back into his pocket, irritated with himself. What was he doing, loafing around in the cafe, wasting time? He had work to do.

Leon would sort himself out.


	6. In Which Wesker Sequence Breaks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wesker is a bad man.

The wind howled incessantly as Wesker climbed the ridge. It cut across the top of the hill, forcing trees to bow and sway, rattling their branches like maracas. The empty seats of a nearby ski lift swayed on their lines, creaking loud enough to wake the dead. The sun hung just behind a distant mountain peak, and already the air was cooling in its absence.

His destination nestled in a clearing at the top of the hill. The rustic ski lodge appeared perfectly innocent from a distance. Its walls were a mixture of rough stone masonry and wide oak planks, with numerous picture windows beneath thick log awnings. All it lacked was a dusting of pure white snow, and it would have made for a fine Christmas postcard.

It was also remote and difficult to access, with an attractive front to lure in travelers and harsh surrounding wilderness to blame for any sudden disappearances. Spencer had always found an amusing irony in preying on outdoorsmen.

A tall cobblestone wall fenced in the property, unusual for a ski lodge. The iron gate provided a light gothic touch to the scene. He vaulted over the wall, ignoring the gate entirely. The scent of wood and tree sap rose thickly around him as he climbed the half log stairs up to the front porch.

The place appeared deserted, as it ought to be in the off season. The front door was locked. While he could have forced the door by simply breaking it off its hinges, he instead chose the subtler route of breaking a window latch. This allowed him a far quieter entrance. He did not fear discovery; he simply preferred to put it off until he was deeper into the facility. Timing was everything.

Once inside, with the roar of the wind muffled by walls, he took a moment to pat his hair back into place while he studied the surroundings. He stood in a darkened living room, the hardwood floors softened by a large beige throw rug. A massive stone fireplace took up most of the wall on one side. From its thick stone slabs hung an elk head whose sweeping antlers appeared spectral in the gloom.

Grunting in distaste, Wesker removed his sunglasses and slipped them into a pocket. Naked as he felt without them, even his impressive night vision wasn’t enough in this darkness. By degrees, his eyes adjusted, the shadowy shapes resolving into scattered furniture. He maneuvered around the couches. His heavy footsteps resounded in the silence, floorboards creaking heavily under him.

From the sitting room he came to a large, open area that could only be the lobby. It had been a while since he’d seen so many taxidermied animals and antique sofas in one place. The interior decorating made him almost nostalgic for the Arklay Manor. A thin layer of dust covered the empty reception desk. However, the place wasn’t completely deserted. Someone had lit a fire in one of the nearby rooms; he could hear it crackling in its gate. A telltale red glow illuminated the far end of one of the many halls branching off the main lobby.

According to Ada’s information, two security operatives would be stationed in the lodge proper, posing as caretakers. His fingers closed around his sidearm, drew the gun from its holster as he slowly approached the first and only sign of habitation. The gun was more for security than anything--he didn’t plan to kill the caretakers with anything as noisy as a gunshot, unless they turned out to be something more formidable than a human.

Every door down that hallway was closed save the one on the end, which led into a combination bar and lounge. The lights were on, and the fire burned merrily in another massive stone fireplace, untended and alone. No dust. No people, either. A magazine lay on the floor beside the counter, carelessly dropped open to a centerfold featuring a coy swimsuit model. It seemed someone had left in a hurry.

An open laptop on the table displayed the security feed from numerous cameras. Here was the first sign that Ada’s intel had been on the money. An ordinary ski lodge wouldn’t have so much surveillance on the grounds. One of the cameras showed the front door, and the window he’d opened was just visible off to the side. That no one had come to greet him suggested this post had been abandoned before he’d arrived.

Unless they were waiting in ambush. He tilted his head back and listened. The whole building groaned around him like a living thing under the relentless pressure of the wind. Yet there were no footsteps, no breathing, no heartbeat within 20 paces. He took a closer look at the security feed.

The outside was covered in every compass direction, which still left plenty of gaps for anyone to approach the building. The rest of the cameras were in night vision mode to accommodate for the darkened rooms, and he saw no movement on any of the screens.

Where oh where had the two little guard mice gone? He tapped the barrel of his magnum against his thigh, thinking, as he analyzed the camera feeds. Perhaps there was some significance to a few of the areas being monitored. Most of them were in high traffic areas like the lobby or games room, but then there was the one camera pointed straight at a barred alcove where a skeleton stood imprisoned, and the other fixed on an eagle with glittering ruby eyes, and one pointed at--of all things--an old wood fire pizza oven. Three of the cameras were disabled, and showed nothing at all.

He left the bar, tracing his steps back down the hall in the direction of the stairway he had passed. When he passed in front of the last closed door in that hall, a sudden, loud bang from behind it nearly made him jump. Long years of disciplined training had re-coded that reflex, made him wheel about and point his gun at the noise instead of flailing from it.

The closed door trembled as whatever was on the other side continued pounding on it. That room would be one of the guest bedrooms, if he remembered Ada’s blueprints right. The lodge boasted no less than thirteen of them, four of which were clustered on the ground floor. As for the nature of the guest, he had his suspicions. The fact that the door locked from the outside was pretty damning evidence. No doubt every bedroom locked the same way.

The racket subsided, punctuated by a low, animal groan from a throat that may once have been human. Wesker lowered his gun. Whatever ‘treatment’ that guest had already received, it didn’t seem capable of breaking out of its room. Perhaps later, if he didn’t find a way to blow the whole facility, he might let the residents out for some exercise among the staff. He was sure they’d appreciate it.

The banging resumed as he climbed the stairs to the second floor, growing fainter as he put distance between himself and the unhappy guest. It seemed odd that there had been no camera coverage of the guest rooms, in light of this revelation. Perhaps those were the broken cameras.

Things were much more claustrophobic on the upper floors. Narrow halls, intrusive walls, locked doors everywhere. He oriented himself as best he could remember from the floor plans and headed for the game room. There he would find the hidden entrance to the lab below.

Footsteps ahead--light, quick, with a clack that indicated a hard sole or heel. Three gunshots rang out, and someone cursed a blue streak from an open room ahead. Wesker slowed to a stop, his head tilted to one side as he listened.

“Francis, come in. I lost them. You’re guarding that last emblem, right?”

“Negative.” The second voice was older, shot through with static. Someone on the radio, then. “Emblem was already gone when I got here. That’s all three missing.”

“Shit. They must have gone down into the labs. Hang on, I gotta contact security.”

Wesker’s eyes narrowed. He leaned around the door frame, his eyes locking on the figure of the man in red plaid standing near the pool table. The caretaker held a shotgun in the crook of his arm, and was fiddling with a radio.

“Don’t bother, they’re not gonna respond,” said the voice over the radio.

“It’s protocol, Francis.” The caretaker switched channels and depressed the button. “Black fox, this is Innkeeper.”

He was answered by static.

“Black fox? Black fox, respond.”

The static continued. Wesker used the noise to hide his footsteps as he crept closer.

“Goddamit. The hell is going on down there?” He switched channels again. “Francis?”

“Still here. What did security say?”

“Bupkiss. No one down there is answering.”

“Told you.”

“Gettin’ real nervous up here. You know what happened at Sheena, and Rockfort, and, hell, _Raccoon_ \--”

“Makes you real glad to be up here and not down there, don’t it?” Francis said. “You think Mr. Born With It might be staging a breakout or something?”

“I thought they were moving that guy? Isn’t that what alpha team’s here for?”

“Maybe trying to move him was a bad idea.”

“Aw, don’t make me think about it. I read that guy’s file. Sends chills down my spine, and I’ve been in this business 20 years. Seriously now, Francis, what do we even do?”

“Hope there’s an outbreak and the intruder gets their ass eaten?”

“I _meant,_ should we call HQ?”

“I guess. You’re closer to the phone, you do it.”

“Fine. Meet you in ten.” The caretaker switched the radio off. “Lazy asshole, make me do everything...” He clipped the radio to his belt, his head swiveling up in the direction of the old rotary phone that sat on a nearby end table.

Silently, Wesker pulled his knife from its shoulder holster. The man stood no less than three feet away, completely oblivious to his presence. Enlightening as that little conversation had been, Wesker was not about to let him inform ‘HQ’ about anything. Though he did wonder--would the man have a direct line to Oswell Spencer, or would he call some other lackey? Wesker had not had a chat with the reclusive lord since his ‘death’. It would be such fun to _catch up_.

The caretaker froze suddenly, his head turned in the direction of the couch that sectioned off a corner of the room. He began to shift direction, and then stopped abruptly again, because Wesker’s combat knife had just carved a thick, smooth line across his throat. He toppled to the carpet and bled out quickly, his face frozen in a grimace of shock.

A moment of gloating, Wesker had decided, would not be worth the headache Spencer could call down on him if the old man realized he was here.

The dead man’s radio crackled to life.

“Hey, Wyatt? I just found something weird oozing out of the oven.”

A pause. Wesker regarded the radio coolly, Wyatt’s blood dripping from his knife.

“Christ, I don’t like this. I’m coming to you.”

The corner of Wesker’s lips pulled up. It was so nice when the mice ran to him--it saved him a lot of trouble. He plucked the dead man’s shotgun from his lax fingers and cracked it open for a look at the ammunition. Ordinary slugs, not even anti-BOW rounds. It seemed they weren’t prepared for the likes of himself.

He went out to meet the rat. Already he could hear the man running up the stairs, yelling frantically for his partner. Wesker dashed to him before he could even register that someone else was standing down the hall, seized him by the throat, and slammed him against a wall. Francis the caretaker kicked and flailed, his eyes bugging out comically.

“Evening.” Wesker smirked, enjoying the human’s terror. “I have a few questions for you.”

The caretaker responded with some gurgling, animal noises and kicked at Wesker’s side. Wesker gripped the man’s shoulder with his other hand, easing some of the weight off his throat.

“What were they researching in this facility?”

“I don’t know,” the man choked out.

“And what happened down there before you lost contact?”

“I-I don’t know! I swear to god, all I do is watch the grounds and shove food through the slots, they don’t tell me anything--”

“Do you know _anything_?” Wesker asked casually, his grip tightening.

“Changing...tracts...” the man gasped. Wesker had to ease up on his throat again.

“The eggheads said--they were ditching the old subjects and starting something new. We--we just--we sent subject LK24 down for testing. That’s the last we heard from them.”

“How long ago was that?”

“A--an hour?”

He didn’t sound very sure of himself. No matter.

“How do you get down into the lab?”

“Under--the pool table--you put the 3 emblems in the slots and it ghk--opens the floor.”

“What other security is there?”

“I-I’ve never been down there, I don’t know.”

“Pity.”

The man’s neck crunched under his hand as easy as popcorn. Wesker dropped him to the floor like the useless sack of meat he was.

“I suppose I’ll have to see for myself.”

So, there had been a specimen transfer, and shortly afterward all contact with the labs had been lost. It didn’t take a genius to connect those dots. Still, there was a second option. It was possible the team he had charged with following the chemical shipments had successfully infiltrated the delivery entrance and raised havoc. Either way, it was highly likely he would be walking into an outbreak. The thought did not give him the slightest pause. Few BOWs could threaten him anymore.

A glint caught his eye. There on the floor, a few inches from the dead man’s open hand, lay a handgun. It wasn’t a standard model pistol. He scooped it up for closer examination. The body of the gun was black with brown accents, the slide a bright silver with a rounded top. A small emblem depicting something vaguely face-like was set into the grip. It was definitely a custom job, and high quality at that, not the sort of thing that usually fit in a glorified security guard’s budget. Something about it seemed familiar. Curiosity aroused, he decided to take it with him.

With that nuisance disposed of, he returned to the games room. It was simple enough to move the pool table aside and pull up the carpet beneath. There were the slots for the three emblems, set into a broad oak panel in the center of the floor. Wesker did not have the patience to hunt down those special keys. He lifted a boot and slammed his heel into the center of the board with all his considerable might, slamming a large indent into the wood. With a few good kicks, he managed to brute force his way past the barrier. It seemed almost a pity to destroy that example of fine Trevor-like engineering, yet somehow Wesker couldn’t bring himself to care.

The exposed secret passage led down a short flight of stairs to a creaky iron cage elevator. Wesker entered the elevator and closed the barred door behind him. A switch inside the cage started the contraption moving downward, and the elevator squeaked and rattled its way down a clammy concrete shaft.

While he was waiting, he contacted his team.

“Report, Bravo captain.”

“We made it to the delivery entrance. No one’s coming to let the trucks in. It’s been thirty minutes now.”

“I’m entering the lab now. Be ready to force entry on my signal. We may have a code black on our hands.”

“Yes, sir. Understood.”

A distant boom shook the structure, rattling the elevator against the walls of the shaft. Wesker stumbled, caught off guard. A second, louder explosion knocked him off his feet completely, and then the elevator was plummeting, cut from its ropes. He had time only to squeeze his eyes shut before they hit bottom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't mean to have so many cliffhangers they just keep happening


	7. In Which No One is Happy

It is a natural thing for any living being with lungs to panic when starved for air. Old, primal instinct takes over--the body needs oxygen, and desperation for it overrides all conscious thought. In this, even Wesker was still human. Panic woke him from a stunned daze, panic and a burning in his lungs. He opened his eyes to total darkness and a cold, crushing pressure on his chest so heavy his diaphragm couldn’t expand, starving his lungs.

He thrashed once, making metal and concrete rattle around him. Clumsy, frantic hands patted blindly in the dark, searched their way up the wall of rubble to the weight on his chest and pushed with all his strength. It was a strain, even for him, but little by little the weight shifted upward, groaning the whole while.

Wesker gasped in air, coughed out dust, gasped in more air. With the weight off his upper body, he was able to turn his head back into a natural alignment. The broken disks in his neck cracked back into place and mended themselves while he gorged himself on air.

Higher thought returned along with the oxygen. The elevator had collapsed on him, what felt like the entire shaft falling on top of it. There had been an explosion first--a self destruct mechanism, or a trap?

What a damn nuisance.

He shifted in his would-be tomb, taking stock of his body. The sharp-hot pains of bone fractures faded with every breath, his enhanced body already hard at work repairing the damage. His knees and left hip were pinned by sharp metal, probably the elevator cage. Slowly, with calculated shoving and pulling and twisting and bending, he wormed his way down.

After a short eternity of painful, tedious progress, Wesker emerged blinking into a dim corridor lit by flickering fluorescents. He brushed some of the dust from his torn black clothes. Two locks of hair fell down into his eyes, freed from their immaculately gelled position by the excitement. Every attempt to pat them back into place failed. 30 minutes into the mission, and already his hair was ruined. At least all his equipment had survived unscathed. Wesker sneered at the rubble behind him, thoroughly disgusted by this turn of events. The debris would make exiting this way quite difficult, though not impossible.

The hall around him was as stark as it was dismal, all plain white tiles and concrete floors, as one would expect. It was also empty and silent, which was not expected. There weren’t even any bloodstains on the damp walls. According to Ada's blueprints, this elevator stood close to a security room. Wesker limped to it first, determined to get a better bearing on the situation. The security room was also empty. The chair sat off to the side, its back crushed into an abandoned pizza box, and a lone radio on the desk emitted intermittent static and panicked voices.

"Black fox, come in! Come in! Goddammit, we're getting slaughtered over here. Is anyone there?"

"No one interested in talking to you," Wesker muttered as he sank into the chair. His whole body burned with the excess heat of rapid healing. He rubbed his neck, grimacing. It would be best to rest here for a bit and take stock of things before confronting whatever dangers had been unleashed in this lab.

“Oh god, it's in the vents, it's using the vents—Connor get away from--!”

And the screaming from the radio went on like that, ignored.

The wall full of monitors showed a far more complete picture of the complex than the caretaker’s laptop. He could even see into the lodge’s locked guest rooms, and confirmed that the guests were quite infected and very ornery. Several of the monitors down here were blacked out, as well.

“Now then. Where are your servers hiding?”

The nearby computer was good enough to provide this answer. It even marked which areas were on lockdown on the facility map. Fortunately, the trouble hadn’t reached the server room--yet. The locked areas cut a line through the center of the labs, blocking him off from the delivery entrance where his team waited. Something to worry about later, when he needed to make his exit.

There was precious little other information on the security room computer. He found movement logs, sign ins, incidence reports, and weapons inventory--nothing very useful. He poured over the specimen intake files, hunting for any information on just what kind of outbreak he was dealing with. These, too, were mostly gibberish to him, as all the specimens were referred to by two letter abbreviations and no detailed handling advice had been provided.

Intake during the off season truly was sparse, Wesker noted as he glanced idly through the list of newly acquired test subjects. There were only 5 in the past two months. His eyes caught on the last entry on the list--one dated to a little over two weeks ago.

_Leon Kennedy_

_Sex: M Height: 5’10” Weight: 155 lbs Blood Type: A_

_Room: 009_

There were no doubt other men in the world who shared that name, and Wesker did not believe for a minute that this could be any one of them. The timing matched up too perfectly. The only question left to him was _why_.

Revenge didn’t make sense. Leon wasn’t even part of anti-Umbrella, and the government kept their anti-BOW expert quite hidden. There was nothing in Leon’s genetics that would make him special, in regards to T family research (Wesker knew because he’d checked). Umbrella couldn’t have even known Leon would be there in his lab. They’d only happened across Leon because they’d been following Wesker. Had they taken the agent simply because they had the opportunity? Were they so hard up for test subjects that they’d go to the trouble of kidnapping a man a state away? It all seemed so unlikely, so nonsensical.

Wesker checked the monitor for room 009. The room was empty, the bed unmade, its leather straps dangling off the side. He glowered intensely at the screen. The signs were not good. If Umbrella had already made use of Leon and disposed of him...

Specimen LK24, the caretaker had mentioned. Of course. He should have realized sooner. Wesker pulled up the transit log and read over the entry more carefully.

_5:30 pm, LK24 prepped for transit to blue room. Specimen attempted escape en route and was subdued by security team. Specimen is currently sedated and awaiting attendance by Dr. Martin._

“Blue room,” Wesker muttered. He checked the facility map and quickly located it. It was in the same direction as the server room, requiring only a slight detour for him to reach it, and safely distant from the lockdown area.

Wesker stood up and stalked out of the room. Umbrella had taken Leon for a reason, and Wesker was going to find out what it was.

* * *

Interlude: Ada’s Report 1

I must admit, it was quite an unpleasant surprise to receive this mission just after I had directed Wesker to the same location. Knowing how the organization found this place, it does have some worrying implications about Spencer’s future plans.

I can’t let Wesker’s presence interfere with my mission. I know why he’s here and what he’s after. In a perfect world he’ll get his data without looking at anything else along the way, but I’m not going to hold my breath. I have to find the objective before he does, and get out without being seen.

Our ‘relationship’ is a rocky one. He doesn’t trust me, and I’ve never trusted him. All the same, I’d rather have his good will--for now. Letting him catch me here could raise a lot of uncomfortable questions. It was lucky for me he killed that guard when he did, and didn’t come any closer to the couch I was hiding behind. Luckier still that he took the elevator first. I’m not sure what caused that blast, but I know I wouldn’t have survived the crash as well as he can.

I had hoped it would put him out of the game for at least a little longer, but as it stands, it gave me just enough time to slip down to the labs through the other passage way. We’re tied neck and neck once again.

I thought I knew which path he would take through the facility, yet now he’s taken a sudden detour to one of the side labs. This could be my chance to pull ahead in this little race of ours. On the other hand, whatever it is that’s caught his attention must be important.

I think I’ll follow him for a while, just to see what he’s up to.

* * *

Darkness. The blunted edge of pain, lurking somewhere under the fuzzy cotton blanket of anesthetic. For Leon, awareness came all at once, as immediate as the flick of a light switch. Comprehension, on the other hand, returned in trickles and dabs, slow and thick as molasses drizzle. He lay on something padded but not comfortable, his upper body propped up on an incline. The acrid stench of antiseptic stung in his nose. Somewhere nearby, a sharp, steady beeping kept time with his pulse.

This was all familiar, even to his groggy brain. What he couldn't puzzle out was how he'd landed himself in a hospital. Again. Things came back to him in bits and pieces: Wesker in his hotel room, the car chase, the very minor fender bender with the streetlight. Had that crash done it? Surely not. He'd barely felt a jolt when they hit.

Someone was calling his name.

Leon peeled his eyes open. With a little effort, a blond and black blur above him resolved into a familiar, handsome face. Wesker was scowling down at him, one lens of his shades cracked, shoulders dusted with gray and several locks of his hair hanging down out of place.

“Uhhh...” Leon smiled dopily upward. “Hi.” He was aware, distantly, that he shouldn't feel so happy to see Wesker. It was very, very hard to care at that moment.

“Are we awake now?” Wesker asked him.

“Getting there.” He shifted a little, and groaned at the soreness in his abdomen. A forgotten urgency bubbled to the surface. There was something important, something he was forgetting. “Who let Dr. Salvador have a whack at my stom--” He stopped, noticing for the first time the presence of the leather straps tying him to the hospital bed. He jerked his wrists several times, just to test if they were real. They did not budge.

“Wesker,” Leon said slowly, much more aware suddenly. Nothing woke a guy up from a drugged haze quite like a burst of adrenaline. “What the hell.”

A sterile clinical room, a bed with restraints, a heart monitor, and Wesker lurking nearby all added up to something a lot more terrifying than a hospital.

“You're in an Umbrella lab,” Wesker said, like this nightmare wasn't bad enough already. “What happened? Do you remember?”

Don't panic, Leon told himself. He strained after those elusive memories, sorting through a blurry train of images. “Left the car...” he muttered. “My phone rang...” Hunnigan, shit. “Someone hit me with a tranq dart. Everything after that is a blur.”

“You've been missing for two weeks.”

_Don't panic, don't panic._

“Are you planning to untie me anytime soon?” he asked, uncomfortably aware that he had practically been gift-wrapped and Wesker was a very bad man.

“Not until I find out what they did,” Wesker said, and moved away to a nearby computer.

_Don'tpanicdon'tpanicdon'tpanic._

“Right. Good call,” Leon said hoarsely to the ceiling.

In the time it took Wesker to pull up his information, Leon had envisioned no less than 15 grisly fates which could be lying in wait for him, all based on his experiences with Umbrella monsters. He could turn into another zombie. His heart could burst out of his chest, his skin could rot off. He could turn into any number of different mindless, gruesome flesh-hungry ghouls.

The click-clack of Wesker's rapid typing ended in an abrupt crash as he punched his fist through something. He flitted back into Leon’s line of sight, bent down, and tore open the front of Leon's hospital gown. It was very forward of him and Leon might have playfully scolded him in any other situation. He and Leon both stared in silence at the thick surgical bandages wrapped around Leon's abdomen. Well, that explained the soreness. Leon looked up at Wesker, a question dying on his tongue at the sight of the red flaring through the man's shades. Anger radiated off the tyrant like heat from a stove.

 _“You,”_ Wesker hissed, _“still had a plaga inside you.”_

Leon squinted into the red glow, as confused as he was alarmed. Was that a question? It didn't sound like a question.

“Y-yeah? The doctors told me it was too dangerous to take out safely, but that shouldn't—It's dead. They told me it was dead. They said it couldn't possibly come back.”

“You don't understand.” Wesker took a deep breath, the glow dimming from his eyes. “Umbrella has stolen my data on the parasites in the past, but they've never had a physical specimen sample to work with.” He gestured with one flat palm towards Leon's bandaged stomach. “Until now.”

A weight seemed to settle in Leon's throat, which swallowing did not budge. He looked down to the not-so-innocent bandages over his stomach.

“They took it out,” he guessed. “They're going to, what, clone it? Make themselves a whole bunch of the little monsters?”

“Yes. They will be of limited use without a master plaga specimen to control them, but I doubt that will stop Umbrella.”

Leon squeezed his eyes shut. Chris and his people had worked so hard to burn out all traces of the Illuminados cult, just so no one else could get their hands on those parasites. Only Ada had gotten out with samples, and when no new plaga outbreaks had shown up, Leon had hoped her employer would keep his new ace contained. Now Oswell Spencer's followers had one.

But if they had removed his plaga...

Leon looked down at his feet, which stuck up naked and unprotected in the chill air of the laboratory. He wriggled his toes experimentally, relieved beyond words when they obeyed. Thank god, the procedure hadn't fucked up his spine. Wesker didn't miss the motion.

“Other than the incision, how do you feel?”

“Feels like I've slept for a week. I can't remember anything that happened after I got knocked out.”

“Not surprising. You’ve been in an induced coma for most of your stay here.”

“A coma?”

“It’s standard procedure for a deep abdominal surgery like this. Reduces the chances of brain damage due to bleeding.”

“Well that was nice of them,” Leon grumbled. “Why all the fuss? Why stitch me back up at all? They could have just let me bleed out.”

“Clearly they had other plans for you. You’ve survived a plaga infection. That makes you a more valuable test subject.”

Leon grimaced. “What else did they do to me?”

“Nothing, yet. It seems they were planning to test your interaction with something else they've been working on here. Fortunately, that experiment was interrupted before it could even begin.”

“Thank Christ.” Leon sank back into the bed, exhausted by the sudden release of tension. “I'm clean, then?”

“As far as I can tell.” Wesker gently gripped Leon by the chin, turning his head this way and that while he appeared to examine the man's eyes. “Your lucky streak continues.”

“If I were really lucky, I wouldn't get into these situations,” Leon pointed out.

"You do get into the most interesting predicaments, don't you?" Wesker smirked, his fingers tracing teasing circles around the buckle of a leather strap. His eyes fell to Leon's bandaged waist, and the playfulness chilled off his demeanor. "It's too bad I don't have time to take advantage, today.” Without further preamble, he began unfastening the leather straps binding Leon to the bed. Leon watched with barely hidden amazement. He'd been bracing himself for some kind of ultimatum—a 'join me and I'll consider releasing you', kind of thing. Yet Wesker wasn't even going to make him beg?

“Time is limited,” Wesker warned him as he helped Leon stand. “Something has escaped containment deeper within the lab, and I don't know how fast it's spreading.”

“You wouldn't have something to do with that, would you?” Leon asked.

“For once, no. Things were already out of hand before I arrived.”

“Huh.”

Wesker pulled away from him. Leon wobbled a little before stabilizing.

“Can you walk?” Wesker asked.

Leon tried. His long drug-induced sleep had left him tired and unsteady, but everything seemed to be in working order.

“Think I'm okay.”

“Good. I don't have time to escort you to an exit just now.”

"Yeah, that's fine. Just point me in the right direction so I can start taking these bastards down."

Wesker regarded him in silence for a moment. "Leon. You have no shoes, no weapons, and no pants. Do you really think you're in any condition to fight right now?"

"Not having pants is new, but I'll manage somehow."

Wesker took in a deep breath through his nose, and blew it out noisily.

"Clearly I've underestimated how badly the painkillers have impaired your judgment." He grabbed Leon by the shoulder and steered him around. "You're coming with me while I obtain my objective."

"You, you're pushy, do you know that?" Leon said. “Can you at least loan me a gun so I can defend myself?”

Wesker’s gaze settled down on Leon’s still-exposed stomach, then flicked back up to his face. “No.”

“Aw, come on. Not even a little pistol?”

“You’ll regret it,” Wesker said simply, and forcefully guided Leon out of the lab.

Neither of them noticed the pair of brown eyes watching them from a nearby vent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ada’s Unsubmitted Report: Fuck


	8. In Which an Escort Mission Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wesker is bad at looking after other people

When Wesker was about 8 years old, his guardian had given him a book of traditional riddles. Just another way of ‘helping his mental growth.’ The one that had stuck with him after all these years featured a boy who needed to get a wolf, a sheep, and a cabbage across a river using only a small boat that could hold himself and one other. It was just the same riddle he was facing now. At his side, a wounded sheep. His goal, the cabbage. If he brought the sheep anywhere near the cabbage, it was sure to eat it, yet there was no safe place to leave the sheep without fear of a wolf coming along.

How indignant Leon would be if he knew what Wesker was comparing him to.

Wesker worked at this puzzle even as he led Leon towards the data room, his eyes peeled for anywhere he could safely leave the agent, where he would be neither a danger nor in danger. He ignored the memory of the man who gave him that riddle book, which insisted it would be easier to leave Leon, and safer to kill him.

“The question is flawed,” had been the reply when Wesker had presented his answer. “The true answer is to take the only thing of value, and leave the rest to be devoured.”

Wesker had been 12 when he found out that his own solution to the riddle was the correct one, and the one his guardian had told him, a strange distortion. The older he grew, the more he came to understand that his guardian, despite having some useful ideas, was often very short-sighted in his thinking.

While shepherding Leon about would be a great inconvenience, it would be worth it. Leon was all alone here, defenseless, and none of his friends or even his employer knew where he was. Even once they escaped, he would be completely reliant upon Wesker. That was sure to have some interesting effects on future negotiations involving employment.

“Woah, hold up,” spoke up the problem of the hour, grabbing for Wesker’s forearm in an attempt to physically stop him. Wesker accidentally pulled him forward half a foot before he stopped, and had to steady the other man before he fell over. Leon glared muzzily at a spot on the floor in front of them. “I don’t like the look of that.”

He pointed to a an obvious 2” gap surrounded by striped black and yellow paint.

“Emergency shutters,” Wesker said. “This lab is able to isolate sections, as an outbreak containment measure.

“That’s what I was afraid of. What do we do if we get stuck on the wrong side?”

“You’ll want to be on this side,” Wesker told him, stepping over the gap. “There’s no exit from that area.”

Leon hurried to follow him.

“I’m guessing you know where we’re going.”

“Yes.”

“Wanna share with the class...?”

“We’re going to take care of the business I came here for.” Wesker glanced sidelong at his companion. “After that, we will need to find an exit. The elevator collapsed on my way in.”

Leon grumbled a complaint about the vagueness of his answer. “Elevator?” he noted. “So we’re underground.”

“Yes.”

“Where is this lab, anyway?”

“Somewhere in rural Montana.”

“That narrows it down.”

Wesker smirked. He knew what Leon was trying to do. Knowing his precise location would enable him to slip off and call one of his friends in for help. Wesker had no intention of letting him. While he didn’t have any solid plans for what to do with the other man, Wesker was not in the habit of letting a card go once it had fallen into his lap.

Wesker paused at the next intersection, reorienting himself to his mental map. He had only been resting for a few seconds before a chill shoulder leaned into his side. He glanced down at Leon. This was the third time in the past 10 minutes that the other man had tried to huddle against Wesker. The first time, he’d assumed Leon was just tired or dizzy from the anesthetic, but now he was starting to doubt.

“Why do you keep pressing yourself against me?” Wesker asked.

“You’re hot, and I have no pants,” Leon mumbled. After half a second his eyes popped open, a light flush creeping up his neck. “That came out a lot dirtier than I meant it to.”

“We’ve fucked, you recall,” Wesker said.

The flush was up to Leon’s ears now.

“Hard to forget,” he said.

“It’s cute that you still get so flustered.”

“What I’m _trying_ to say is that I’m cold. Can we please find me some pants?”

“Hmm.” Wesker thought about it for a moment. “Employee lockers will be in the locked down area.”

“Dammit.”

“I suppose we’ll have to keep an eye out for a corpse your size. Unless...” There was a lab near here, as he recalled. “A lab coat?”

“That doesn’t sound like pants.”

“No, but it will be warmer than that flimsy surgical gown.” He let his gaze drift downward. “It’s fallen open again, by the way.”

Leon cursed, the pink tint to his cheeks darkening to a full scarlet. He scrambled to cover himself with the green umbrella-patterned smock of cotton.

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen,” Wesker reminded him.

“You’re not the only one here!”

“I wouldn’t worry about anyone else. The odds of them surviving this incident are quite low.”

Leon’s company almost paid for itself, Wesker thought to himself as he continued down the left fork, the agent grumbling along behind him. So far they had yet to encounter anyone else, and they hadn’t seen any bodies either. It puzzled him. Even if only a skeleton staff were present, there should have been someone by now. A corpse in a corner, a frightened scientist hiding in a closet, even a BOW or two wandering the halls. Yet, there was nothing. Was every being, living and dead, cordoned off behind the lock down?

“A real gentleman would offer me some of his own clothes,” Leon said.

“You can not have my pants.”

“Selfish.”

“I doubt they would fit you anyway,” Wesker pointed out. He was a few inches taller than Leon, after all, and slightly broader as well.

“Hey, weird question.”

“Always with the casual interrogations.”

“I’ve seen a lot of naked zombies in Umbrella labs, and some other BOWs, too. And not a single one of them has ever had a dick. Why is that? Does the T virus...?”

Wesker cleared his throat.

“The soft tissue does rot first.”

“Oh.”

“In the case of certain specimens, they were castrated beforehand.”

Leon made a strangled noise and seemed to curl in on himself.

“Yes. Be very glad Umbrella was kind enough to simply give you a gown.”

“But-- _castration?_ Why?” Leon demanded, one decibel below a yell. “Don’t tell me the scientists who dealt with rotting bodies every day were disturbed at the sight of a penis.”

“William had a theory. The Tyrant line of BOWs, you see, were all clones of an Umbrella executive. He thought perhaps that this executive demanded it, to curb gossip throughout the company about his, well, package.”

“That small, huh?”

“I never had the misfortune to see it.” Wesker fought back a shudder. It had been so very satisfying to finally kill Sergei. Even if he’d had to spend the rest of the day in the shower to feel clean again, afterward.

“Why were they cloning an executive?”

There was no harm in explaining, Wesker supposed. The government already had this information after all.

“Only a very small percentage of the population have the genetic disposition to become tyrants. This executive was fortunate enough to be one of them.”

“Huh.”

They walked on for a bit.

“I guess if it were me, I’d feel weird about all my coworkers seeing my dick on a daily basis, too.”

“Depends on the line of work,” Wesker replied.

They came to a lab. Leon made a beeline for the rack of coats sitting against one wall.

“Buttons, thank god,” he murmured, holding the garment to the ceiling with an expression of almost religious rapture.

While Leon busied himself with that, Wesker picked over the laboratory. It appeared to have been abandoned very abruptly. Chairs were overturned, computers left on with half-finished documents on their screens, incubators sitting with their doors open. The place was nearly spotless, except for some spilled coffee and a few patches of black mold growing underneath the air vent. So much for a sterile working environment.

“I look ridiculous, don’t I,” Leon asked.

Wesker looked. Leon had buttoned the lab coat up over the gown, covering it completely. The coat still only reached about mid thigh, and the addition of further clothes only made the bare legs and feet stick out even more.

“You do,” Wesker agreed. “But it will serve. Come. We shouldn’t be here long.”

* * *

The lingering cocktail of sedatives in his system made it hard for Leon to keep sense of time as they wandered the quiet halls. It could have been twenty minutes or twenty hours that they walked side by side with nothing eventful happening. The endless procession of winding identical hallways offered no good way to mark progress. Other than the emptiness, nothing seemed all that strange about the place. Without Wesker’s word otherwise, he could have believed the facility was simply abandoned. It was almost strange to be exploring an Umbrella lab without the moaning of the dead for background ambiance.

The first sign of life--if one could call it that--was a loud banging sound that stopped the two men at the threshold of an open door. It was followed by a second bang, and then a third, each with a rattling metallic undertone. Leon had been in enough outbreaks to recognize this kind of noise. Something infected was pounding at a barrier.

“We’ve got company,” Leon observed lowly.

Wesker pulled his sidearm from its holster, his narrow eyes focused straight ahead. Leon eyed the gun with envy.

“You sure I can’t borrow a weapon?” he asked. Being defenseless in this situation was almost worse than the knowledge Umbrella had operated on him.

“You don’t trust me to protect you?” Wesker asked wryly.

“I don’t trust you, period,” Leon replied, almost as a reflex.

“I’m not sure I believe that anymore,” Wesker said, and walked forward, leaving Leon gaping at his back.

Trust Wesker? Of course not! Even if he had probably gone out of his way to get Leon, when he was clearly here on other business...

Leon shook himself and hurried after his self-proclaimed protector.

The source of the noise was all the way down the next hall. One of those big security shutters had closed on a man in Umbrella-standard black combat gear. It had caught him at the shoulder, presumably crushing the arm. Slowly, he raised his free arm, and slammed his gloved fist into the metal. He did this over and over, as regular as a goddamn clock.

Infected? Definitely. With what? Leon had no idea. As they drew closer, the man stopped his banging, his gas mask slowly turning to face them. He didn’t say anything, didn’t reach for them. He just stared.

It was unsettling. Wesker walked a wide half-circle around the man, the aim of his pistol never leaving the spot between the red glass eyes. Leon followed suit, turning as he went so he didn’t take his eyes off the threat.

“What did you say they were working on here?” Leon asked, sotto voice.

“I don’t know,” Wesker answered.

“A zombie would have lunged for us by now.”

“Yes,” Wesker agreed.

Leon raised his voice to address the creature.

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you it’s rude to stare?” he called. There was no response. He couldn’t tell if it was even breathing.

“They never do show any manners,” Wesker said.

They kept an eye on the thing until they were well out of range and around a corner. It didn’t move in that whole time, though once it was out of sight, the banging picked up again.

“Making a statement for the record,” Leon said. “I don’t like any of this.”

“Noted.”

“How much further?”

“This is section 5. We’ll need to pass about four more of these,” Wesker said, gesturing to the open emergency shutter as they passed it.

“And then--”

Wesker silenced him with an urgent gesture.

“Wait. Stay there.”

A moment later, and Leon heard it too. There was a crowd of men with heavy boots moving nearby. Quick, agile footsteps. Probably not zombies.

“Can you at least spare a knife?” Leon asked.

“Relax, Mr. Kennedy. They can’t come anywhere near you without going through me first.” Wesker released the safety on his gun. “If you’re worried, then I’d advise you go and hide.”

You had to admire the man’s confidence, if nothing else. Leon moved back, uncomfortably aware of his current vulnerability and hating every second of it. The walls swung around him, like someone had the whole hallway on a tilt-a-whirl. Maybe, on second thought, Wesker had done the smart thing in not giving him a weapon when he was still coming down off morphine and god knew what else.

Leon had to backtrack all the way to the end of the hall to find good cover in the doorway of an empty lab. Someone yelled, their voice muffled and distorted by the many walls between them and Leon. Then the gunfire started. He could pinpoint the moment when the voices changed, when professional barks turned to panic. Wesker must have revealed his abilities.

As he waited, Leon looked around the laboratory behind him. There wasn’t much special, that he could see. You see one mad science lab, you’ve seen them all. This one had all the staples: neat rows of white and steel tables bearing a variety of computers and equipment, chunks of abominations floating in clear glass tanks, racks of petri dishes stacked up on shelves. One little specimen tank caught his eye from across the room. Perched on a desk beside a monitor and an open notebook, the piecemeal remains of a brown organism the size of 2 fists floated in the clear fluid.

He checked out the doorway briefly and then padded over for a closer look. It was a plaga specimen alright. The electrical burns scorched up its main body left no doubt in his mind, this was his plaga, the one Umbrella had extracted from him. Like hell he was going to let them keep it. He hunted around for some way to destroy the specimen. Too bad Umbrella never installed a handy “incinerate specimens” button.

Since it was there, Leon picked up the notebook to read through as well. The open page contained a single small paragraph.

“ _Extraction of chemical compound successful. Compound has been given designation Plaga 30, or P-30 for short. Preliminary trials have exhibited an unexpected increase in strength and stamina following P-30 injection. This strength wanes along with the chemical’s control over the subject’s mind. We must suppose the compound is activating some untapped potential within the human body, or perhaps removing safeguards that prevent it from self-damage. Overclocking the system, as it were. It is the same effect observed in the plaga’s host organisms.”_

Leon didn’t like the sound of that. He read through the paragraph a second time, and then leafed through the notebook’s earlier entries for more context, scanning through pages of sprawling equations and anatomy diagrams. The few tidbits he found were far from comforting.

“ _I have located the chemical sacs on the parasite extracted from specimen LK24. Unfortunately, they are too damaged to be useful. Will have to wait until we grow our own adult specimens. Isolating the chemical sac should be a simple matter on an intact plaga. The data ‘donated’ from our competitors gave us detailed studies of the parasite’s anatomy._

_“Once we have understood how the plaga uses these chemicals to control its host, we should be able to replicate the effect without needing a master plaga sample.”_

Leon’s fingers dented the pages, his grip so tight his knuckles had gone white. This research--they were talking about a mind control serum, and they’d used the goddamn plaga they’d cut out of his body to make it. Umbrella wouldn’t even need the parasites once they perfected this. They could inject anyone, force anyone to do their bidding, make puppets of world leaders and super soldiers out of anyone else.

He couldn’t let Wesker see this. He couldn’t let _anyone_ have this research. It was too dangerous. Just the thought of it sent icy fingers crawling down his spine. Wesker already wanted Leon to work for him, and badly. If he had this ‘P-30’ then he wouldn’t need to ask anymore. He wouldn’t have to manipulate or cajole or bargain, he could just stick Leon with an injection and pow, he’d have an utterly devoted slave.

It would be just like Spain. Leon remembered the feeling of it, of his hands rising out of his control, his fingers wrapping around Ada’s smooth neck and squeezing, how his mind had gone blank of every thought except that _sound_ \--not words, not commands, just a resonant tone that plucked his nerves like a virtuoso guitar player.

Cold sweat trickled down his brow, one drop landing on his white knuckles. He had to destroy this research, but how? He was all alone here, groggy and unarmed, and Wesker--

“Emergency. Biohazardous outbreak detected. Initiating quarantine procedure for this sector. Repeat: Biohazardous outbreak detected. Initiating quarantine procedure for this sector. All healthy employees please evacuate.”

“Shit.”

Leon dropped the book and sprinted--or tried to--back across the lab, bent double like an ancient grandmother at a track meet. The pain and disorientation worked against him at every step. He fought through it. Even if he popped some stitches, even if he had to run out into the middle of a fire fight, it would be better than getting trapped on the wrong side of that barrier.

The shutter was already half-closed when he emerged into the hallway, and steadily inching towards the floor. There was no way anyone deeper in the section would have had time to evacuate once the alert went off. Maybe that was the point. Still, he could make it, if he just pushed himself a bit faster.

A soft obstacle caught his foot, sent him tumbling to the floor. He looked back at a corpse dressed in Umbrella fatigues, its neck at an unnatural angle. Cursing, Leon struggled to his feet, his hand pressed to his aching stomach. The barrier had two feet of open space left. Leon kept going, using the wall as a crutch to keep him steady. The gap had reduced to a few inches by the time he reached it. He slammed his palms into the metal and shoved, as if he could stop it from descending those last few inches. His hands slid uselessly up the cold steel. The barrier clanked shut.

Silence. No computer voice, no gunfire, it was as if the barrier closing had shut off every sound in the place.

“Wesker?” Leon called, still leaning against the barrier. If he tried to stand up straight right now he’d fall over.

There was no response.

Leon let his hands drop to his sides. He was not going to die here. He didn’t dare die here. As much as he flirted with danger, he liked living far too much to go out now. Besides, he had just given himself a very important mission. The P-30 research had to go. Somehow.

Trapped, unarmed, and alone in an infected sector, he took a deep breath and turned around to face down the corridor of newly blood-stained walls and flashing red lights.

“Keep it together, Kennedy,” he told himself. “You’ve survived all the rest of the crazy shit that’s filled your life until now...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The continuing adventures of Leon’s weirdass questions
> 
> Ok so. P30. It always really bothered me that Capcom, in their infinite wisdom, just made up this super chemical out of nowhere and only used it for that Jill boss fight. Like. Where did Wesker get it??? If he has this super soldier mind control serum just lying around, then why is he bothering with las plagas OR uroboros?????? I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS ANSWER ME CAPCOM  
> In an effort to explain the thing, I decided it must have been derived from the plagas. Will P30 play a role in the future? I guess we’ll seeeee~


	9. The Forced Stealth Section

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leon meets a few new friends and one old one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this chapter back in the rosy days of 2019 before everything got so....chaotic. All the references to lockdowns and quarantine hit different now.

Wesker was not accustomed to looking out for other people. Such behavior had never been encouraged during his formative years, and had proven outright dangerous during his time at Umbrella. So it is understandable, perhaps, that Wesker didn’t even think of Leon when the quarantine alert went off. He knew himself to be on the correct side of the barrier, and he was busy killing people.

Once every last man of the security team lay dead and Wesker stood victorious without a scratch on him, he noticed that the alert message had stopped playing. Only then did he remember his self-appointed charge.

He made a doomed sprint to the barrier, but it had been closed before he started. Leon was nowhere in sight.

“Leon?” Wesker called.

There was no response. Frustrated, he slammed a fist into the barrier. The steel was thick, engineered with BOWs in mind, and even his strength barely dented it.

Behind him, something began to gurgle and hiss.

* * *

On his side of things, Leon hovered over the body that had tripped him, debating with himself whether or not to follow Wesker’s implied suggestion and rob a corpse for clothing. He didn’t think he could bring himself to do it. God knew, in his line of work, he desecrated the bodies of the dead enough without also stealing their pants.

The corpse’s other gear, on the other hand, he considered fair game. The body was clutching an assault rifle, its barrel crumpled into a dangerous zigzag dented all over with human fingerprints--no doubt Wesker’s handiwork. As the gun was worse than useless in that state, Leon turned his eyes instead to the combat knife strapped to the body’s waist, next to a radio.

“Sorry buddy. I’m gonna need this more than you,” Leon told the corpse, reaching for its belt.

He had just touched the strap for the knife sheathe when the dead man’s hands seized his forearm with bruising force. The body reeled upright, it’s head spinning slowly towards him with a horrible crackling sound from the broken discs in its neck. Through a crack in the mask he could see black fluid weeping down from a glassy eye, like little black rivers against ashen colored flesh.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Leon wrenched himself free and fell back on his ass. He crab-crawled frantically backwards.

The thing groped after him, hands pawing the floor like a blind man. Its legs twitched and spasmed like it didn’t know how to work them.

“Dammit. When were you infected?”

It didn’t answer him. It didn’t make any noise at all.

Leon scrambled to his feet and limped back towards the lab. When he glanced back at the corpse once before rounding the corner, the body was just standing up. A dull bang rattled the barrier behind it. He didn’t look back again.

The lab had those fancy motion-activated doors that retracted when approached. Leon entered it and poked at the control panel nearby until he found a button that seemed to lock the door. There he caught his breath, leaning one forearm on the door, looking out through the window into the hallway. He was trying to think if he’d seen anything like this before. It obviously wasn’t plaga or G. A new variant of T virus? He hadn’t picked up enough details to be sure.

The corpse showed up after half a minute, shambling steadily towards the door. Good, it was slow. He may have a chance of keeping ahead of it, as long as he kept moving. The possible-zombie came up to the door and began to bang on it, not unlike its buddy from earlier. Leon left it to its own devices.

Across the room, his dead plaga floated peaceably in its tank. Leon rummaged around through the lab equipment until he located a flint and a Bunsen burner. With a bit of fumbling, he managed to get the thing hooked up and lit without setting himself on fire. It had been a while since his last chemistry class. One by one he fed the pages from the notebook into the flame. Maybe it was overkill, maybe no one else would ever come back this way. It was still satisfying to watch all that careful work shrivel up into wizened, blackened clumps. He would still need to hunt down any digital copies of the research and destroy it. That was a problem for later.

It was cathartic, smashing open the stasis tank and setting the plaga remains on fire. There was a finality to watching the flesh char which he’d never gotten from doctors just telling him the thing was dead. Maybe now he could stop having nightmares about it coming back. It would have been nice if he could take the burner outside and set the infected corpse on fire, too, if only the cables to the gas lines would reach. Unfortunately, it had not been designed with portability in mind.

The banging on the door stopped. Leon sidled up to the window and glanced out. His pursuer was still out there. It had moved a few feet down the hall, and had its head tilted back as it looked at something on the wall above it.

The body began to shake. Its right arm swelled, then all at once the fabric exploded outward into a long, sinewy limb covered in a wet black substance and topped with a bony claw. It reared back, aiming its new limb at that something high on the wall which it had been looking at.

Leon noticed the air vent to his left about a second before the claw ripped through it.

“That’s a hell of a way to knock,” he told the room at large while he hit the lock release button. The door slid open, prompting the creature to look towards him. “I told you, no solicitors!”

It watched blankly as he hurried down the hall away from it, utterly unappreciative of his wit. Then, it ripped its arm out of the vent, and began to follow him.

* * *

Not for the first time, Leon wondered to himself how he always got into these situations. He pulled his stolen lab coat tighter around himself, gritting his teeth against the chill in his bared legs and pining for some good boots and a pair of pants. They always cranked the AC up too high in these facilities. Behind him, a trail of bloody half-footprints stretched down the hall, capturing in the most morbid of inks the balls of his feet and two toes. He’d stepped in a pool of blood at some point without noticing, and now it felt cold and sticky on his soles. Just another great feature of this unscheduled Umbrella tour.

If what Wesker had told him so far was true, then Leon wouldn’t be able to escape the facility from this sector. He needed to find some way to disable the lockdown, if it was possible. How he would do that and what he was even looking for, he had no idea. Hopefully, it was something obvious like a big shiny lever with “pull me to escape” written on it.

Leon navigated the area in his usual fashion, stopping in every open room to rummage around for anything useful and to browse through any documents left out. Most of it was scientific notes, and therefore gibberish to him.

One note of interest that he did find was a printed memo on a lab table, addressed to the security staff. It read,

_“Our latest acquisition mission was a resounding success, but we are not out of the woods yet. There is a strong possibility our competitor will retaliate, and we can not rule out the chance that our team was tracked here. All security teams have been issued with special syringe-injectors. In the event that anyone encounter an intruder matching the description of Albert Wesker, inject yourselves with this before engaging. It may give you a fighting chance.”_

A picture of Wesker had been included at the bottom.

“Hell of a security policy,” Leon mused out loud. So Twitchy back there had infected himself. That explained why he’d reanimated so quickly after dying. The whole idea seemed ludicrous to him. If a heavily armed team of humans couldn’t take Wesker down, then he didn’t see what hope a handful of braindead ghouls could have.

Speak of the devil and he may appear.

The popping whine of approaching radio static startled Leon into dropping the memo. Without hesitation he eased himself underneath the nearest lab table and crouched there, quiet and alert. The static resolved itself into a gruff male voice, its words too muffled through the wall to distinguish. He caught the phrase ‘delta team’ and that was it.

The lab’s automatic door swished open, admitting a leaning figure in Umbrella fatigues. Twitchy, as Leon had taken to calling it, swayed lightly in place, the two new tentacles sprouting from its back busy earning its namesake with their jerky, disjointed movements. The distended arm swayed side to side, almost feeling out the space in front of it. Searching for him?

The radio on its belt spit out more voices.

“Any luck?” asked a man Leon was coming to hate. He had heard that voice twice before: once during the attack on the hotel room last Christmas, and again as consciousness faded from him in a dark alley. Hunk, Wesker had called him, one of Umbrella’s top operatives.

“Negative,” a different man replied. “The sample’s toast. Some asshole lit it on fire.”

Quiet and still in his hiding place, Leon smiled in satisfaction.

“Dammit. We’re going to have to retrieve the samples from Green lab.”

“Is that in the quarantine zone?”

“It’s past it. The only way to get there is by going through the heart of the outbreak.”

Assorted hissed curses. Twitchy lurched forward into the lab proper. The door wheezed shut behind it. Throughout Leon’s aimless, circling explorations, that BOW continued to follow him, slow but relentless. It was an unwelcome reminder of his time back in the RPD, hearing Mr. X’s boots stomping after him, always no more than a few rooms away. At least it hadn’t punched through any brick walls yet.

“Phantom. Vox. Get down to the blue room and grab specimen LK24, if he’s still alive. Then regroup at the shutter for section 2.”

LK24. The seemingly random sequence of numbers and letters pinged a memory in him. It was a specimen designation. _His_ specimen designation. The number they’d assigned to him, because Umbrella didn’t like letting test subjects keep their human names.

The BOW trudged by his hiding place, one boot shuffling before the other.

“What do they want him for?” wondered the radio.

“Maybe he’s still got bits of plaga in him?”

“We’re not here to ask questions,” Hunk broke in. “Just get him, and bring him to the specimen elevator.”

“What about Ciel, sir? If we enter the quarantine zone, we’re definitely going to run into him.”

“Ciel’s been marked for termination. We’ll need to pick up flamethrowers before engaging.”

Ciel.

Leon pressed a hand to his temple, struggling to remember. There was something familiar about that name. Where had he heard it before? He couldn’t remember. The BOW, too, paused in its march, as if it were also thinking. If he reached out, he could touch its boot.

“Termination is lowest priority. If you encounter the subject without a source of fire,” Hunk went on, sounding almost hesitant, “Just run. Is that clear?”

“Crystal.”

“Alright, men. Move out.”

So, his goal was in the green room. It was behind a bunch of quarantine shutters, probably in an area infested with monsters, and he needed to reach it before these goons did. One more task for his list of impossible things to do before breakfast.

Twitchy lurched forward a little more, until it reached the far corner of the room, where it stood in front of a bunch of petri dish racks and stared into the growth lights. It did not seem interested in leaving. Leon was going to have to make a run for it. Its back was turned, and it was slow. If it weren’t for the damn hole in his stomach, this thing wouldn’t have been a threat at all. He’d have left it in the dust ages ago.

If he moved briskly and with purpose, he ought to have enough time to trot out of reach of Twitchy’s tentacles. What really worried him was the fact that several armed Umbrella goons were hunting for him, and were likely in the section with him already. They would be a lot harder to sneak around than Twitchy over in the corner.

He gingerly moved out from his cover and went for the door. Twitchy, to its credit, began moving after him much faster than it had before. It was almost halfway to him by the time he was out of the lab. Leon picked a direction at random and kept moving, thankful now that his bare feet made so little noise as he walked. He hadn’t heard any Umbrella troops yet, other than through Twitchy’s radio, but the section was small and that was bound to change.

The next door he opened had a pistol waiting behind it. The mouth of a gun barrel had a strange effect on time: the whole world slowed when one pointed at you, and all your attention narrowed to the instrument of death. Hard-trained reflex wanted Leon to knock the weapon upward, to seize a wrist and twist. He stopped himself, for he knew the face smiling behind the gun.

“Move, Leon.”

Ada grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into the room. She hammered Twitchy with shots until the BOW staggered and fell down. The door closed on the view of it still twitching on the floor.

“Boy am I glad to see you,” Leon panted. “You here with Wesker?”

“No, actually,” Ada said as she casually reloaded her weapon. “He doesn’t know I’m here, and I need to keep it that way.”

“Wait a minute, I thought you worked for Wesker.”

“Sometimes. I’m a free agent, Leon. I work for a lot of people.”

“...huh. And just what are you here for?”

Ada smiled by way of answer. A smile could say a thousand words. In Ada’s case, they said eight: “did you think it would be that easy?”

“I hope I didn’t scare you too bad when I activated the quarantine. It was the only way I could think of to get you away from Wesker.”

“That was you?” Leon said, surprised. “Why would you...?”

“You know he isn’t helping you out of the goodness of his heart, right? He’s not the kind of man you want to owe a favor, Leon. I’m afraid that if he’s the one to get you out of this facility, he might not let you go afterwards.”

“You’re right,” Leon sighed. “Tell you the truth, I was surprised he’d bother with me at all.”

“It worries me.” She shook the tension off with a turn of her head. “We’ll find a way to get you back up to the lodge. From there you should be able to call one of your friends to come get you. But we have to move fast. I can’t let Wesker get to the objective before I do.”

“What if he comes back for me?”

“Don’t worry, he won’t. At the end of the day, Wesker only cares about himself and his mission. He probably only released you because you were conveniently on the way to his target. Doubling back for you would be too much effort.”

“I guess so.”

A horrible thought struck Leon. What if Ada was here for the very research he wanted to destroy? She wanted to shuffle him off to safety as soon as possible, but he couldn’t afford to leave yet. It would take too long for anyone to get here once he called them. Ada and even Wesker would be long gone by then, potentially with research that could threaten global security.

“I’m hoping you know a way to get out of this section?” Leon asked her, doing his best to act naturally despite the chilling thought spiral that gripped his brain.

“Yes. But you may not like it.”

She was right. He didn’t like it.

Ada had brought him to a broken maintenance panel that led down into a crawlspace. Some of the air vents around the area connected to it. Like all crawlspaces, it was cramped and dark and full of spiders. Beside him, Ada shone her flashlight over the space, wrinkling her lip at the big patches of black mold that had built up on some of the walls.

“Can I just say that crawling on my belly sounds like a really bad idea right now?” Leon said.

“There should be enough room to crouch.”

“Like that’s better...” He glanced longingly down the hall. “You sure we can’t just open the shutters?”

“Not from inside the lockdown. Besides, that would catch Wesker’s attention. C’mon. We won’t have to go more than a couple dozen feet.”

Leon blew out a breath, ruffling the front fringe of his hair.

“Alright. Guess I’m not in a position to argue.”

“You should go first. I’ll cover the rear. I’m reasonably sure the crawlspace is safe.”

Sound enough reasoning. Twitchy was still out there, potentially following after them. In just this one instance, Leon would rather have Ada’s gun at his back.

He stepped gingerly down into the crawlspace, feeling a twinge in his abdomen as he landed. The space had that long disused smell of dust and must, and the mold spots added a disgusting earthy tang to the aroma. He did his best not to breathe in while he passed them.

It was slow going. His stomach really wasn’t happy about the hunched over posture he had to adopt, plus he was still slow and groggy from the sedatives.

“I’m sorry, Leon. This really is the only way,” Ada said after one of the many times Leon had to stop and sit down.

“It’s fine. I’m a tough guy,” he said. “How much farther?”

“Not far.”

They heard a crash behind them. The two paused, alert, listening. There followed a slithery sort of rustle-scrape-thud, muted by distance. The crawlspace quivered lightly under them.

“Reasonably sure,” Leon parroted, suddenly dubious. “Safe as the sewers were back in Raccoon?”

“Safer,” Ada hedged. “Whatever that is, it’s a long way away from us.”

She turned her flashlight over the surroundings slowly. Movement--a swift shadow dashing across the opposite end of the tunnel.

“I think Twitchy just joined the party.”

“I closed the panel.”

“He’s good at busting through panels.”

“Just keep going. I’ll hold him off.”

Before he could say “Ada wait,” Ada had taken off around the corner they had just passed, taking the light with her. Now alone in the dark, Leon sucked a breath in through his teeth. He was really coming to hate being left behind to wait while other people fought. Was this what Ashley had felt like, the entire time in Spain?

Without the flashlight, the only illumination down here were stripes of light filtering through ventilation panels. Leon braced one hand on the grimy wall and kept moving forward, slowly, so he could feel out what was around him.

Soon the rough scrape of concrete under his hand gave way to metal grating. Caught up in the hope that the end may be in sight, Leon almost missed the face on the other side of the bars. He heard it breathe before he saw it, and his stabilizing hand knocked into foreign fingers. There was light coming through, somewhere on the other side of the grating, just enough to outline a humanoid figure lurking just beyond those bars.

It would be a good moment for a breezy quip, if only he weren’t unarmed, alone, squatting in the dark with his stomach on fire. Leon sat still and waited, for a non-infected escapee to say something, or an infected monster to start ramming its fists against that barrier. The figure did neither. The sillhouette of its head seemed to bob and twist a bit, as if it were looking around. Then the grating rattled lightly under the scrape of retreating fingers, and the shadow turned and moved away.

He caught a glimpse, as it passed beneath that distant pool of light, of ashen brown hair hanging in tangled curls to dirty white shoulders. He still couldn’t say whether it had been human or BOW.

It was gone by the time a flashlight beam reappeared on his left side, nearly blinding him in that eye.

“Sorry,” Ada said when Leon cringed away.

“Did Twitchy get down here?” Leon asked.

“It’s taken care of, but we shouldn’t hang around.”

“There was something else behind the grating over here,” Leon told her.

When she moved the flashlight beam to follow his pointing finger, the light could not penetrate beyond the metal. Something dark blocked up the holes. Had he imagined the entire encounter?

“That wasn’t there 10 seconds ago,” Leon protested.

“We’re at the corner edge of the sector. This side goes to sector 14, which we don’t need to worry about,” Ada replied, a shrug in her voice. “What we want is sector 3. I hacked this part of the security system open.”

She pointed her light at an opening in the grating not 5 feet ahead of Leon. The opening was lower than the rest of the ceiling, with an upper clearance of maybe 3 feet. He couldn’t go any further without getting down on his hands and knees.

“If you can just get through that opening, we’ll be home free,” Ada said.

“Piece of cake.”

Leon got down to crawl and immediately regretted this decision. Hunching over had been unpleasant but bearable; attempting to support his weight on knees and elbows felt like a little gremlin in his stomach was jabbing at things with a dull knife.

“I take it back. This is not cake,” he groaned, curling up on his side. “You might have to push me.”

Ada hissed a curse.

A terrible mechanical racket came from above, followed by heavy footsteps. Ada knelt under the bars of light from a ventilation panel above, squinting upward. Her face went slack in surprise.

“Leon?” Wesker’s voice called, and the heavy footsteps tread directly over them. “Leon!”

He and Ada shared a dumbfounded look. Thinking quickly, Leon made his decision. He waved Ada over and urged her into the shaft with a whispered, “go!” Despite her unhappy expression, she moved to comply without hesitation.

“Wesker!” He called.

The footsteps came back.

“Leon?”

“Right here,” he said.

“How did you get under the floor?”

“Found a crawlspace. It hooks up to some of the ventilation shafts. I don’t think there’s a way to get in anywhere near--”

A fist punched through the ceiling about two feet from his head, raining dust and debris on the crawlspace floor. Leon flinched backward, one arm lifted to shield his face from the flying dust.

“Jesus Christ!”

Wesker appeared in the new hole, looking about the crawlspace with interest.

“Does this stretch between sections?”

“Looks that way.”

The tyrant’s gaze focused on Leon.

“Perhaps not the best mode of travel for someone in your condition,” he observed.

“’My condition’? I’m recovering from surgery, not pregnant,” Leon told him. He got up and straightened, poking his head out the new hole, forcing Wesker to retreat. The floor came up to about the level of his armpits. He braced his arms on it, ready to try lifting himself out, and was immediately stopped by Wesker’s hands on his shoulders.

“Don’t,” Wesker snapped. “In case it hasn’t sunk in yet, you have just had a major surgery. You will have a hole in your abdominal wall, currently held shut by a few bits of string. You are not to strain your abdomen or lift anything over 10 pounds--especially not your own body weight.”

“10 pounds?” Leon yelped. Even his neighbor’s yappy little dog weighed more than that.

“Do you really want to rip your those stitches open?”

Leon swallowed. “Probably not.”

“Let me get down and lift you out,” Wesker told him. Leon backed away from the hole, allowing the man to widen it (with his bare hands) and then jump down into the crawlspace.

He picked Leon up under the backs of the thighs, and Leon held on to Wesker’s shoulder while the tyrant vaulted up out of the crawlspace. He set Leon down very gently and immediately fell to his knees. Normally the position would put a lot of dirty thoughts in Leon’s head, but Wesker only seemed to want to examine the bandages.

“There doesn’t seem to be any new blood. You should take more care in the future.”

Leon tilted his head, staring downward at the incongruous and impossible sight of Albert Wesker fussing over him. He really didn’t know what to do with this. Because Ada was right: Wesker didn’t care about people other than himself. There was loads of anecdotal evidence to support that claim.

Wesker looked up, apparently sensing the weight of Leon’s stare.

“You came back,” Leon said. “For me.”

From this angle, Wesker’s eyes were perfectly visible behind the shades. His gaze dropped to the floor, almost sheepish, if Wesker could ever manage such an emotion. He rose to his feet, where he could safely regard Leon from behind the barrier of tinted plastic.

“Once again, I seem to have underestimated your resourcefulness. I did not think you would be able to find a way out of this section once it had been locked down.”

“Worrying about little old me?” Leon snorted. “Careful. You’re going to make me think you care.”

“Let’s not attach sentimental words to it. I like you. And you’re useful. I would rather not let Umbrella waste your potential.”

“Wasn’t expecting sentiment. You remember that we’re enemies, right?”

“Hmmm. Well, we’re working on that,” Wesker murmured as he walked away.

It was amazing how effortlessly terrifying he could be if he wanted. Normally Leon would shrug the comment off, or return fire with something about overconfidence. The knowledge of P30’s existence put a real damper on that line of banter. He resolved to himself, once more, that he would not let it become a problem.

He looked back into the crawlspace one more time, seeking some hint of movement, a flash of red, proof that Ada lingered nearby. It was too dark to see anything. Leon trailed after Wesker, still adrift in uncertainty.

“So, is this why you wouldn’t give me a gun?” he asked. “You were afraid I’d strain myself?”

“One of the reasons. You’re in no shape to handle the recoil,” Wesker replied. “And a knife would be even worse.”

“I hate this,” Leon said. “I’m not used to not being able to defend myself.”

Wesker hummed thoughtfully. He detached a belt from his waist and handed it out. Leon lit up at the sight of the half dozen dusty red incendiary grenades attached to it.

“In case we are separated again,” Wesker offered. “Do not set me on fire, please.”

“Thanks.” Leon took them, his smile radiant. Finally, a weapon! Any weapon! He would have gladly taken a can of pepper spray at this point.

“And _don’t_ throw them too hard.”

A corner of Leon’s mouth twitched upwards.

“Never thought I’d say this, but I think you’re scarier in doctor mode than killing mode.”

“There is a reason STARS alpha team never needed a medic,” Wesker replied, smirking over his shoulder.

They fell back into their previous rhythm, Wesker walking just slightly in front of Leon, as if Ada and the shutters had never separated them.

"So," Leon drawled after a minute, "You like me."

"You would not still be alive if I didn't. I am not in the habit of fucking people who irritate me."

"I guess."

"Feel free to begin writing combinations of our names in your trapper keeper with glittery gel pen."

"You wish," Leon chuckled.

It hit him like a ton of bricks: He liked Albert Wesker. It wasn't just lust, not anymore. He genuinely enjoyed the man's company and liked spending time with him. Wesker was clever and well informed, calm and capable, with a dry sense of humor that snuck up like an assassin when you least expected it. They always had interesting conversations, even if half of them turned into debates. The two even worked well together, and good goddamn was it nice to have Wesker on your side against a horde of BOWs.

Damn shame about all the murder, terrorism, sadistic experiments, and out of control ambition. If he weren't so terrifyingly cold half the time, Leon could see himself dating this man.

It had progressed to the point that he felt a little disappointed every time they had to part ways. Apparently, Wesker liked him, too. It would explain the lingering, every time they had a tryst in a hotel room somewhere, the way Wesker wouldn't slip out until after sunrise. It also explained the dogged insistence with which Wesker tried to recruit him.

Leon wasn't expecting Wesker to return any feelings. He doubted the other man was even capable of emotional depth. Settling down in a little suburban house with a white picket fence and ten dogs just wasn't on the cards for either of them, and neither of them would want that kind of love, either. They weren't domestic. God knew Leon had tried, first with Angela, then a few others. He just didn’t seem to be programmed for a normal romance.

The revelation buzzed through him like an angry bee swarm, and Leon felt more lost than ever.

“Leon? Are you alright?”

Leon looked up with a start. Wesker stood in front of him, frowning down at the hand which Leon had unconsciously pressed to his abdomen.

“Just. Thinking.”

Wesker raised an eyebrow, not budging.

“I...don’t hate you,” Leon said, with the awe of a man experiencing a great revelation.

Wesker’s lips twitched in the threat of a smile. “No, you don’t,” he agreed, with such knowing confidence that Leon was tempted to take the statement back out of sheer contrariness. Wesker walked on, and Leon hurried to keep up.

* * *

Ada’s Report 2

There was something down in that crawlspace with us. I didn’t get a chance to tell Leon. His little stalker got out of my sight for only a moment, and then it vanished. It didn’t seem the type to give up. I’m afraid a bigger fish might have dragged it away.

I was blindsided, when Wesker came back. Even though I know why Leon chose to reveal himself, I wish he hadn’t. For Wesker to show so much concern tells me that Leon is more than just a warm, willing body to him, and that can only mean Leon must figure into his bigger plans somehow. That’s never a good thing.

I can’t afford to waste any more time. There are too many horses in this race, and the prize is too close. I’ll wait until Wesker’s back is turned, and then I’ll show Leon where the entrance to the secret passage is. Leon will have to figure out how to slip away from Wesker on his own. If he can make it to the passage, it will lead him all the way back up to the bar in the ski lodge. The lodge has working landlines. He can take it from there.


	10. In Which Hunk Chimes In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wesker and Leon enjoy their reunion with some good old-fashioned monster fighting. Leon, however, has a self-appointed mission to complete.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the continuing adventures of 2020 being....2020, there is a gigantic wildfire right outside my town. Everything is covered in ash and smoke and it's all very silent hill right now. There hasn't been any evacuation orders yet, but, it's a possibility. So if I disappear suddenly, you'll know why.

If anyone had asked Wesker outright to explain why he had gone to such trouble to reunite with Leon, his reply would have been a simple reminder of what happened the last time he let that man out of his sight in a lab full of valuable research. It was a good excuse. Solid. Rational. He had been using it internally the entire time he hunted down the mechanism to reopen the shutter.

It allowed him to ignore the little voice inside, the one that hissed that Oswell Spencer had already ruined too many good things and taken too much from him. He wasn’t to have Leon as well. Wesker wouldn’t allow it.

At the moment, Leon was aimlessly scanning the area as they walked, brow furrowed in thought. His skin had turned a shade paler in the time that he had spent away from Wesker. For the first time since he had awoken, the man seemed truly on edge. Perhaps the drug-induced fog had burned away enough for him to comprehend the danger he was in. In any case, the agent needed watching, for with lucidity came that quick-sharpness of mind that made Leon dangerous.

Wesker would miss the drunken staggering and impromptu cuddling. If only he could find a supply of morphine somewhere. It would both help Leon with the pain and keep him tractable.

“I don’t know if you heard all that radio chatter a while back,” Leon said. “It sounds like there’s still Umbrella people here, and they’re looking for me.”

“Mmm,” Wesker hummed. “All the more reason for you not to wander off, then.”

“Tch. You’re the one who left me behind, Leeroy Jenkins.”

“I seem to recall hearing something about a specimen sample being lit on fire?”

Leon glanced away, guilty.

“I did that after I got locked in.”

“I’m sure you did.”

“That warning message doesn’t give you nearly enough time to get out. The shutter must have started closing right away.”

Wesker wasn’t sure he believed him.

“It was the plaga,” Leon volunteered after a minute of silence. “My plaga. That’s what I burned.”

“Ahhh.”

“And it sounds like they’ve already made more of the little bastards.”

“I hope you’re keeping in mind how very ill-equipped you are for a crusade at the moment.”

Leon sniffed, tossing his head. “Don’t know what you’re implying,” he said. “Oh, and another thing. I found a security memo lying around. It sounds like the security teams here were told to inject themselves with something the second they saw you.”

That explained the rapid-fast transformation of the team he had killed.

Wesker could not contain a chuckle.

“What?” Leon demanded.

“You’ve been reading every random note and file you stumble across again, haven’t you?” Wesker asked.

“They have useful information,” Leon shot back, defensive.

“Did you also find the lab’s fire escape plan, and some passive aggressive notes about stolen staplers?”

Leon fidgeted. “Some guy named Matt kept getting in trouble for steaming eggs in the autoclave.”

“Mmhmm.”

Wesker turned left at the next intersection. They had reached section 3 now, according to the signage on the walls. The server room wasn’t too much farther. Wesker had not yet decided what he would do with Leon while he was busy with the computers. The man was bound to slip off and cause trouble at the first opportunity. Perhaps Wesker could tie him to a chair...?

A soft beep from his ear piece. Wesker pressed two fingers to the device to answer the call.

“What is it?”

“Movement. They’re dumping a lot of crates out of the delivery truck. Could be they got fed up with waiting.”

“Where are they dumping the crates?”

“Outside on the grass. They’re in a hurry. Looks like they just want to empty the truck out. Wait--they’re moving the truck around the building.”

Emptying the trucks, moving them--preparation for a hasty specimen transfer?

“Leave them be, for now. Make your way in through the delivery entrance and begin clearing an exit route. The center of the facility is still in lockdown due to the biohazard outbreak. We will need to open it up soon, but not yet.”

“Understood, sir.”

Wesker lowered his hand.

The air behind him felt empty. He spun on one heel, scowling suspiciously down the hallway in search of his charge. If that man thought he could just sneak away and Wesker wouldn’t notice--

The sight of Leon standing still at the mouth of the intersection, backlit by the flickering florescent lights, astonished all thought from his head. Leon had his head turned, his troubled eyes staring intently at something distant down the other hall. His handsome profile was accented very beautifully by the lighting. He was holding himself tall, even though one hand hovered about his abdomen, lingering near the bandaged stitches in case support was needed.

What was he thinking about, to make a face like that?

Wesker realized he was staring. This was not the time to get distracted.

“Leon?” he called.

Leon glanced at him, shattering the beautiful and disquieting moment. Wesker beckoned with a crook of his fingers. Leon, slow to comply, had to look down that other hall for a moment more before he would move.

“What is it?” Wesker asked once Leon had jogged over to him.

“Nothing, I was just...” he trailed off. “Do you hear that?”

He did, now that he was listening for it. Wesker half-turned, head cocked to better pick up the shuffling, slithering sound that approached them. Under those wet noises he could discern muted footsteps, and a brief outburst of crackling radio static.

“Phantom? Vox? Regina? Come in, anyone.” Hunk’s voice came through the static.

Wesker pulled out his gun.

Two of the operatives from the earlier strike team lurched around the corner. Both had acquired a few extra bony claws and lashing black tentacles. He had destroyed these men twice already, first when they were human, and again when they rose from the dead. It seemed he had not damaged them enough.

“Ah, great. Twitchy has friends,” Leon said. “Let me guess. You killed these guys already?”

“This trash is more durable than expected,” Wesker said.

The other four appeared shortly afterward, from the opposite direction. They were flanked.

“Stay close to me this time,” Wesker directed.

“Will do.”

The thing to do when caught in a pincer attack is to break through the weaker side and regroup. Wesker rained gunfire down on the two BOWs approaching from the front, aiming for knees. Both creatures staggered and fell. This was their chance.

He pressed a hand to the small of Leon’s back and pushed him forward as quickly as the other man was able to move. Leon successfully cleared the stunned BOWs and kept going. Wesker, several steps behind him, got his forearm snagged by a flailing tentacle. The limb used its grip to wrench him around, attempting to throw him to the ground.

Wesker braced his stance and turned the tables, using the tentacle to reel the BOW in towards him. Before it could recover enough to swipe with its claws, he raised one leg straight up and slammed his boot down on its head. Helmet and skull alike crushed under his heel like a rotten grapefruit. Getting that gore out of his boot treads would be fun later.

The other four monsters had reached the live one still on the floor. A hand caught Wesker’s from behind and pressed a hard cylindrical object into his palm. Wesker glanced at it, registering the dull red color. Leon had just handed him one of the incendiary rounds.

“Want to heat this party up a bit?” Leon asked.

“Cute. But this favor is too good for these pathetic specimens,” Wesker replied. He hung on to the grenade anyway, just in case.

Yet Leon had the right general idea: the BOWs were all grouped together, ripe for a single crowd clearing attack. Wesker bent low and sprinted towards the approaching group, hitting the leader of the pack in the chest with a punch that sent it and everything behind it flying ten feet.

A tentacle wrapped around his legs, binding them together while a second tentacle caught his shoulder and pulled, and this time he did get thrown down to the floor. The one BOW he hadn’t hit, the one still on the floor with its knee a burst mess, had decided to weigh in on the disagreement. Wesker caught himself on his knees and one hand. Unfortunately for the BOW, this put him in the perfect position to grab its head and crush it into the floor. Two down.

Wesker got up, pulling tentacles off himself with a disgusted sneer. There was solid bone in the center of the things, but the flesh around it broke under his fingers like muddy potting soil. It was either in a very advanced state of necrosis, or something else entirely.

The rest of the BOWs were starting to get up. He nailed them with several shots to the head each, using a second clip of ammo to get them all. Finally, they were all down, unmoving.

“Shall we do an experiment? Let’s see what level of damage you wastes of virus can recover from,” he said.

His magnum secured back in its holster, Wesker turned around to return the unnecessary incendiary round to Leon. Leon wasn’t there.

“Leon?” He jerked a few urgent steps forward. “LEON!”

No answer. Either that _idiot_ had tried to run off or--

Hunk was still around.

Wesker put that worry in the grave the moment it surfaced. Leon would not have gone so quietly if it was against his will. No, he was certain that the reckless fool had slipped away while Wesker was occupied.

He had been expecting just such a stunt, bracing for it even. Leon was stubborn and independent, and still did not trust him despite the fact Wesker hadn’t tried to kill him in over 6 months. On a normal day Wesker could appreciate these traits, but in this circumstance they made for a dangerous combination.

“There’s no way out from here. You must realize I’m your best chance for escape,” he called. When this was insufficient to entice the agent out of hiding, he opened his senses, listening hard for the slightest scuff of a foot on the concrete, or the thump of a heartbeat. He could hear nothing but the hum of the fluorescent lights. “Whatever you think you’re accomplishing, you’re only putting yourself in danger!”

Still no response.

Attempting to reason with his fleeing charge was getting him nowhere. Further talking would only give away his position, and advertise to Hunk the fact that they had separated. He went quiet, using his superior speed to rapidly search the surrounding area. Surely, he reasoned, Leon couldn’t have gotten far with a hole in his stomach.

The labyrinthine design of the facility worked against him. Each section was a contained maze of clean rooms and hallways, cluttered with dead ends. Every wrong turning allowed Leon to get further away from him. With growing anxiety he considered the idea that Leon’s compulsive reading may have taught him something about the facility that Wesker didn’t know.

“Emergency. Biohazardous outbreak detected. Initiating quarantine procedure for this sector. Repeat: Biohazardous outbreak detected. Initiating quarantine procedure for this sector.”

“Atrocious timing,” Wesker growled at the ceiling. It was almost too terrible to be a coincidence. And this wasn’t the first time a lockdown had activated while they were separated. Almost as if someone were deliberately doing their best to place barriers between them. Perhaps Umbrella was watching them.

“ _Forget it,_ ” thought his practical side, which sounded suspiciously like his old guardian. “ _You’ve wasted enough time on his account. Concentrate on your goal._ ”

His goal was to retrieve the data. Anything else was just a bonus.

Jaw clenched to the point of aching, he turned away from the ceiling and ran towards the edge of the sector. There was no choice. He would have to cut his search short. If Leon was still here, he’d be trapped alone in a section with BOWs again. It would be his own damn fault this time.

Now, where was the entrance to section 2? Wesker had absorbed the broad layout of the lab, and always knew which direction he needed to go, but he had not memorized every little room and turning. He could find the edge of the section, but the doorway that would lead to section 2 eluded him. The first path he tried led to a dead end. So did the second. Between that and the time he’d lost being so far away when the alarm started, the shutter was closed when he found it.

Wesker glared at the barrier, now fully and painfully understanding Leon’s misgivings about the security system. This place was really starting to get on his nerves.

* * *

On the other side of that shutter, some ways down the hall, Leon crouched below the sign for section 2. He couldn’t believe he’d pulled that off. If the quarantine hadn’t gone off when it had, Wesker would have caught up to him for sure. He ought to send Ada a gift basket.

A tiny splinter of guilt nagged at him as he crept away from the shutter. Wesker had sounded genuinely concerned when he called Leon’s name. Almost-but-not-quite frantic, or as close to it as the stoic man could get. Wesker had been nothing but square with him for this whole adventure, had even gone out of his way to protect Leon. Sure, he probably had some sinister ulterior motive, but that didn’t make Leon feel any better about sneaking off and leaving him behind without a word.

An idea hit him as he passed a security station. He went in and rummaged through the cabinets until he found what he was hoping for. Grinning, he took one of the spare radios and turned it on.

“Hello? Hey, you close enough to the dead bodies to hear me?” he asked over the preset channel. Silence followed, and he was about to give up on the idea when the response finally came.

_“Leon,”_ Wesker greeted him. He did not sound happy.

“Did you get stuck in section 3?” Leon guessed.

“Yes,” Wesker sighed, frustration fraying his silky tones to gravel. “Where are you?”

“Not in section 3.”

“You deliberately ran off, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, sorry. I got my own business to take care of. I’m just checking in so you don’t worry about me,” Leon said. He tried to play it off as mockery, to hide the fact that his words were absolute truth.

“Leon, you had better not go anywhere near the servers--”

“What’s that? You want me to wipe all the data? Sure, I can do that.”

_“LEON!”_ Wesker bellowed. It took a special touch for his voice to get that high and screechy, and Leon felt quite proud of himself.

He was going to be so dead the next time Wesker found him. Yet Leon couldn’t get the grin off his face as he slunk along. You couldn’t find a more suicidal pastime than winding up Albert Wesker, but boy was it fun.

“This is the thanks I get for rescuing you?” Wesker continued, softer now, more calculated. “I should have left you strapped to that table.”

“I’m not sure what you expected to happen.”

“Think about what you’re doing. Do you really want to get on my bad side now, when I’m your only ticket out of here?”

Wesker didn’t know, of course, that Ada was lurking around. He didn’t know about the secret passage she’d shown Leon while Wesker was busy talking to his men, either.

“I’ll manage somehow.”

“I knew I should have put you on a leash.”

“Aw, c’mon. We both know you like collars more.”

“Please stop flirting on our comms,” broke in Hunk’s voice.

Leon did not jump and he most certainly had not forgotten there were still Umbrella people alive, potentially listening in.

“Ahh--still alive, Mr. Grim Reaper?” Wesker asked. “Is the rest of your team dead, yet?”

“I am not here to give you a status report,” Hunk replied. “I’m asking you to stop reminding me about what I had to walk in on last Christmas.”

“Your own goddamn fault for breaking into our hotel room,” Leon retorted.

“You should have come earlier, crashed the Raccoon City Survivor’s Support Group. You would have fit right in,” Wesker said.

“I don’t need a support group,” Hunk said.

“Wait, wait,” Leon interjected, waving an arm that neither of them could see. “You were in Raccoon?”

“Oh, didn’t I tell you, Leon?” Wesker answered. He still spoke in playful tones, but there was a sudden edge hidden underneath, sharp and cold and flinty. “Hunk was the one who killed Dr. William Birkin.”

Everything felt suddenly disconnected, floaty, like some vital part of him had been unplugged and now his brain was full of static.

“You....” He began, and couldn’t get anything else out.

“....it was Martinez who fired on him. Against orders.”

“But that was your team. Birkin injecting himself, Raccoon going to hell, all of it, it was caused by you?” Leon said.

Hunk sighed into the radio.

“My team, yeah. They shot him. I didn’t double tap. I should’ve, but I didn’t. That’s on me. What’s it matter? It’s in the past, and no one can change it. Blame doesn’t help anyone.”

“You don’t learn, though, do you? You’re still following this company, still taking orders from the same assholes,” Leon said.

“Which reminds me. I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Wesker said, “Why are you still working for Spencer? That ship hasn’t just sunk, it’s hit the bottom of the ocean by this point.”

Leon looked up, distracted from the conversation by a sound. Quickly, he shut his radio off. The next few words were still audible to him, from a source some distance away, echoing down a distant hallway.

“Loyalty? Huh. I wouldn’t expect a man like you to know the meaning of the word,” Hunk said. The voice was not distorted by a radio. The man himself was here, in this section with Leon.

“I’m not sure you understand it either. That’s what troubles me. Why are you really still following Spencer?”

Leon willed Wesker to keep talking as he moved, using the voices as a gauge on Hunk’s position. He could get around him, as long as this hall didn’t lead to a dead end.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

As he hoped, the hall led on around a corner, no dead end in sight. Leon hurried forward as quietly and quickly as he could, until Hunk’s voice faded in the distance. One more section to get through, and he’d be at the data room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I looked up when the leeroy jenkins meme started just to make sure it would work with my timeline. I hope you all appreciate the detailed research I do for you guys XD


	11. In Which Wesker is Distressed by Mold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wesker has his own adventure underneath the floor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fire update: the wildfire has not moved any closer to town. The sky is still full of smoke and I can now say with authority that ash raining from the sky does not look much like snow. It looks more like dust motes caught in a sunbeam.  
>  I’m absolutely blown away by the response to the last chapter. Thank you everyone for your concern, and I hope you continue to enjoy the further adventures of two idiots bamboozled by feelings.

“Dammit dammit _dammit,_ where is that crawlspace?”

Wesker paced up and down the hall like a caged panther, stamping his boots at intervals, listening for a hollow echo. The stolen radio creaked dangerously in his hand, the fragile plastic threatening to give under the force of his grip. It had fallen silent for the moment. Leon had stopped answering some time ago, and Wesker had tired of taunting Hunk.

There were many different versions of that childhood riddle about the boy and his boat, needing to get his sheep, wolf, and cabbage across the river. Sometimes the wolf was a dog. Sometimes the cabbage was some other plant. In not a single one of them did the sheep ever steal the boat and row away, leaving the boy stranded on the riverbank.

When he got his hands on Leon he was going to...going to...he didn’t know yet. All the traits that he admired about the man--his resourcefulness, his cunning, his sheer will to survive--were the very things that made him a dangerous threat, and would continue to work against Wesker until he finished making those little _adjustments_ to Leon’s allegiance. Even with his insides held together with stitches, the agent managed to be an annoyance. Wesker could not decide whether that fact made him want to throttle the other man or fuck him. Perhaps both at once?

At last, the stamp of his heel against the floor in one spot produced a different tone. He dropped to one knee, prying up that section of the floor. A square poster on the wall nearby caught his eye, making him pause. There was a fire escape plan map on the wall. It clearly outlined the direction to both exits from the section. If Wesker had just looked at this earlier, he might have made it out in time. Maybe Leon had the right idea. Maybe he needed to start reading every stray piece of paper he found.

Growling lowly, Wesker directed his own frustration on the unfortunate flooring standing between himself and his goal. Once he had it wide enough, he dropped down and landed with a squelch on the floor. Something moist and fragile burst under his boots on impact, kicking up an inky spray over his pant cuffs. Black mold. The crawlspace was absolutely caked in it, piles of the filthy substance reducing the tunnel’s modest 4 foot space by nearly a third. Thick ropes of mold dangled from the ceiling and crisscrossed the floor.

Wesker grimaced and resignedly dug through his equipment for a small gas mask which he hooked over his mouth and nose. Usually he would trust his own enhancements to protect him from infections of all kinds, but that mold looked nasty and he was not willing to risk it. He’d never tested his own body against fungal infections before.

The crawlspace interior was black as pitch, so once again he was forced to pocket his sunglasses so he could rely on his excellent night vision. He bent down low, doing his best not to scrape his hair against the growths on the ceiling. Despite his best efforts, a shoulder, knee, or hand would occasionally brush something slimy. He ached for a shower.

This was Leon’s fault somehow, he decided. It didn’t matter that the man himself hadn’t tripped the quarantine protocol. If Leon had stayed with him, been there to guide him, maybe both of them would have gotten out in time and he wouldn’t be crawling through this disgusting patch of hell. Something dripped in his hair. He seized up on a full body shudder and had to force himself to keep moving.

There was one other thing which had been bothering him since he had found Leon attempting to use the crawlspaces. For a lab designed with such high security to have easily accessed tunnels undermining its quarantine system seemed like a ridiculous oversight. He had his answer when he reached the edge of section 3. There was the remains of a grate there, one which should have blocked the tunnel completely. It had been eaten through at the bottom, leaving a 2 foot gap, and the only culprit around seemed to be the mold.

Mold alone would not burst a grate. The ragged edges of the hole were all bent outward, as if torn apart by great force. Wesker placed his palms to those edges and bent them further upward, expanding the hole enough that he wouldn’t have to drag his belly over the slimy floor. Even with the extra height, he still had to drop to his hands and knees in order to squeeze through.

The growth along the floor was so thick his palms sank into it, like the world’s wettest and most awful smelling memory foam mattress. His hand grazed a bony protuberance sticking out from the mold. Confused, he felt over the spot, trying to work out what the neat row of 4 bumps could be. It had give to it but it was still solid, less like the mold and more similar to...flesh. Necrotic flesh.

A writhing in the dark ahead of him stole his attention. A wall of glistening, shifting black blocked the light from vents on this side of the grate, its details impossible to make out even to his eyes. It looked like more mold, but it was moving, thick cords of it slithering over each other in stop-start motions like a hundred spiders. The mass of it crawled slowly across the tunnel in front of him, heading towards his left.

Whatever it was, it did not have a heart beat. He rose to a single knee, one hand fisted above it for balance, ready to spring if needed, daring to move no more than that. The narrow space was an awful location to be cornered in a fight with an unknown BOW.

After a few seconds that felt like hours, light reappeared from distant vent shafts. The tail end of the unknown organism glided out of sight through a new hole in the foundation, leaving his way clear.

Swallowing, he searched the ceiling for an opening that could be made quietly. The nearest vent would do. Wesker moved to the closest cluster of light beams and found what he wanted above it. It was child’s play to rip up the screws and lay the cover aside. He crawled out, up into the sterile air of section 2, and happily ripped the mask from his face. That had been an unpleasant experience he wished never to repeat.

“Pray, Leon,” he growled as he got to his feet, “that you have not done too much damage by the time I find you. If I never have to look at a patch of mold again--”

“Quarantine lock disabled. Please exhibit caution.”

Wesker wheeled around, glaring at the door to the section he had just escaped, yet his ire was misdirected for the barrier remained shut. Frowning now, he stalked down the hall and around a corner, to section 2’s _other_ joining wall. A shutter there was rattling open, exposing the interior of section 12, one of the areas that had been locked down from the beginning.

Like the crawlspace on a grand scale, the entire hall was covered in black mold. Bodies hung from the ceiling, stuck out from the walls, flesh half-eaten through by the hungry spreading hyphae of mycelium. He could see limbs and bits of lab coat sticking out from the thicker piles of mold. There was a cluster of them kneeling on the floor inches past the barrier, locked into place as if they had been hammering on the barrier when they were overtaken.

Wesker reached up and activated his earpiece.

“Come in, King. Did any of you just deactivate the lock down?”

“Negative, sir. I was just about to ask you the same thing. The door’s open on our end. It doesn’t look nice in there.”

“Get your team to begin securing an escape route. Make sure everyone has their gas masks on. I will acquire our objective and meet you at the gate to section 2. Oh--and bring a spare gas mask. We will be bringing a guest back with us.”

“Understood, sir.”

* * *

Leon had not yet done any damage, as it happened, but that would soon change if he had his way. He had just entered the data room, and wound his way around the stacks of servers to the access terminal. While it was tempting to physically crush all the hardware and set the room on fire for safety, he had restrained that destructive instinct for now. First, he needed to use the computers to locate all the physical samples of P-30 and plaga tissue within the facility. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to double check that there wasn’t a data backup somewhere, while he was at it.

The computer demanded a log-in, because of course it did. In all his wandering and rummaging, he hadn’t found a single hint of a doctor’s name or even ID number. He hunted around the server room, just in case someone had dropped the specific information he needed somewhere. The floors were spic and span, and only one single note was taped to the wall near the front door. It read,

_“Please return the lucky troll doll to its rightful place above the door, so the servers will stop crashing. -IT”_

“I could really use some luck right now,” Leon sighed. Maybe he ought to backtrack and check in some of those doors he’d passed. The time that he’d lost already ate at him. Wesker wouldn’t stay locked in section 3 forever. Leon could almost hear a clock ticking down the seconds to the moment the angry tyrant caught up to him. He shivered, thrusting his hands into the pocket of the lab coat. The server room was even colder than the rest of the lab, and his bare toes were turning into icicles.

Something hard and plastic met his knuckles. Blinking, he pulled a forgotten ID card from the pocket. It depicted the credentials of one Dr. Everett Casey. An ID number was printed on the back, next to a magnetic strip.

“Well. That’s convenient.”

Leon hurried back to the terminal, entered the ID number, and swiped the card through the reader.

“Welcome, Dr. Casey,” the computer chirped.

A huge grin split Leon’s face as he recognized that not only did Dr. Casey have access privileges, he had administrator privileges. He could do whatever he wanted. He called up the file explorer, hunted down every document that so much as mentioned P-30, and deleted the lot. He also searched for p30 and plaga-30, just to be safe. Umbrella’s proprietary OS was a little weird to figure out, but he did manage to track down its equivalent of a recycle bin and empty it afterwards. He took a deep breath and let it out. There. It was gone. He could breathe again.

Next he pulled up all remaining mentions of the plagas and went hunting for specimen records. Too bad most of the files had the gibberish kind of file names that only the doctors who made them probably understood. He opened a likely candidate and scowled as it contained nothing but a pirated copy of his own report on the incident in Spain. How had umbrella gotten this anyway? It was a top secret government document, shared only with a few select anti-BOW organizations. Some jerk had even added little notations to it with creepy, detached comments about things like “possible gestation time” and “hormone changes.”

The server room door hissed open behind him. Before the noise even properly registered in his brain, he was half-barreled over by a body colliding with his back, and a strong arm wrapped tight around him. Trapped, with arms pressed tight to his sides, he was forcibly reeled back from the computer. Leon bit back a gasp as the sudden movement sent new stabs of pain to his already throbbing midsection. He twisted up and around, into the bare and blazing red eyes of Albert Wesker.

“Nice. Try,” Wesker growled. His hair had a few more loose strands hanging into his face, and a spot of black ooze matted in one spot above his ear.

Fuck. That clock had had a much shorter timer than he had anticipated.

“Christ, you’re fast,” Leon griped between clenched teeth.

Wesker ignored him. He bent down to take over the mouse, his eyes flicking over the computer screen. The crushing grip around Leon’s upper arms loosened enough for his bones to stop creaking as Wesker paged through the file browser, satisfying himself that the data he wanted was still there. Leon prayed that Wesker would not notice a bunch of files were missing.

“Much too fast for you, I see.” The anger receded from Wesker’s eyes, replaced with that silky smugness that seemed to be his default setting. “You see where your little stunt has gotten you? All that strain on your body, and you didn’t even manage to accomplish anything. Surely you’re clever enough to realize how bad it would have gone for you if you had destroyed this data?”

Leon shook his head. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” he said.

“I think I can guess.” Wesker had tabbed back to the plagas file Leon had open. “So you’re crusading after all.”

A fresh wave of anger boiled out of him, made him struggle and squirm against Wesker’s imprisoning arm even though he knew he couldn’t break that grip.

“I’m not going to let them _keep_ the little monsters!” Leon hissed.

“I never said we were going to,” Wesker replied, his tone mollifying.

Leon sagged, tired out from his fit. It was still so cold in the server room, and Wesker was so warm at his back. He watched impassively as Wesker hooked up some strange little device to the computer and inserted a clear plastic card into it. The screen fuzzed out for a second, and a progress bar labeled ‘data transfer’ appeared. The plagas file was still visible behind it. Leon watched it, trying and failing not to think about Spain.

“Have you ever lost control of yourself?” he asked. “Like someone else was driving, and all you could do was sit and watch?”

Wesker took so long answering that Leon had resigned himself to being ignored, before the chest at his back swelled on a deep breath.

“I suppose I have, once or twice. Shortly after my rebirth, there were times when the virus overwhelmed me. It’s all under control now.”

Leon morosely watched the progress bar tick up and wondered if it really was.

“Sucks, doesn’t it,” he said.

Wesker snorted. “Such a way with words you have.”

“I. Almost killed Ada. Back in Spain.”

“I doubt that.”

“Alright, I _tried_ to kill her.” Leon chuckled weakly.

“And I’m sure she handled you in her usual superlative fashion.” Wesker’s eyebrows creased, his expression turning thoughtful. “It’s funny. Ada never mentioned your infection during the incident. Nor did Krauser. I wonder why they wanted to hide it from me.”

“They didn’t tell you?” Leon repeated dumbly. Ada, he could understand, but why Krauser would keep that secret was beyond him. Unless he hadn’t known?

“I didn’t find out until tonight.” Wesker tilted his head down, meeting Leon’s eyes. “Your exploits in Spain are even more impressive, knowing you were fighting the influence of the parasite the whole time.”

Leon was much too tired to handle flattery. He tried to play it off the same way he always did, but his smile felt brittle.

“I’m not going to pretend it was easy,” he said.

“If you were infected, then why were Los Illuminados so determined to kill you? All they needed to do was wait.”

“I guess they just couldn’t handle me.” Leon smirked. “I kept escaping and killing their men.”

“You are a wiley one,” Wesker admitted.

Leon let his head rest back against Wesker’s shoulder, his eyes dull. He was probably going to pay for this whole stunt later. It was getting harder and harder to care about later.

“I’m so fucking tired.”

“You should be resting,” Wesker agreed, mechanically, as if it were just the sort of doctorly advice he gave out on reflex.

Leon let his eyes close. Just knowing the P-30 data was gone was such a huge weight off him. He’d actually done it. Everything else felt as important as a dream, and Wesker was so warm behind him. He sank even further into that embrace. He hadn’t realized how tired and sore he was until he had something to lean on. Now he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stand on his own again. This was an adrenaline crash if he’d ever felt one. He’d been pushing himself too hard.

“Leon?” He felt Wesker shake him, gently. “Don’t fall asleep.”

“Mmm. ‘m just resting my eyes,” Leon mumbled.

How long had it been? Wesker still hadn’t let go, and the progress bar read 60%. All he wanted was to collapse in a warm bed. With none in sight, he’d have to settle for Albert human-furnace Wesker.

A hand unbuttoned the middle of his lab coat.

“Hey,” Leon protested.

Wesker parted coat and gown, inspecting Leon’s abdomen.

“No new bleeding,” he observed. “What’s your pain level?”

“Hurts like a bitch and a half.”

Wesker’s mouth tilted down in an unhappy line, followed by a brief flare of annoyance. He met Leon’s eyes with an intensity Leon had never seen from him before. He couldn’t imagine what thoughts were burning through that brilliant, twisted brain.

“I’ll live,” Leon told him. It might have sounded more convincing if he’d been able to stand upright under his own power.

“That is what you’re good at,” Wesker agreed. His warm fingers caught Leon’s chin, tilting his face nearer with gentle yet irresistible pressure. “Leon...”

“Hm?”

He leaned down suddenly, crushing their mouths together. Leon made a muffled noise of surprise. His hand came up as high as it could reach, tangling in Wesker’s sleeve. For once, he was content to let Wesker in without fighting for control, enjoying the slow and thorough sweeps of that clever tongue against his soft palate. The angle was awkward, and Leon’s response was sluggish and uncoordinated. Wesker did not seem to mind.

The computer beeped, ejecting the weird card from the device. Wesker broke away with obvious reluctance, his eyes boring into Leon’s. His hand still grasped Leon’s chin.

“No more running off. No more playing hero, not today. You will do more harm to yourself than to me. You’ve already overtaxed yourself.”

He turned away to tend to the computer, leaving Leon adrift in abject confusion. The fuck had that been about? Was he trying to convince Leon there were actual feelings in that black little heart of his?

Wesker pocketed the newly ejected card and vanished his device into another pouch.

“There. Now I have everything I need. It’s time we were on our way.”

“Are you planning to hold me the entire way out?” Leon asked.

Wesker glared at him. “It’s tempting. Do understand that the only reason I haven’t made good on my leash threat is because I lack the materials.”

“Tch. You’re just not creative enough,” Leon said. The plaga report was still up on the screen, no longer obstructed by the loading bar. Morosely, Leon said, “I bet if I was still infected with the plaga, you’d happily find a way to control me through it.”

He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. Because he didn’t really want an answer, didn’t need the confirmation of his worst fears, and worse than that he didn’t want to give Wesker ideas. But the words were out now, and all he could do was deal with the consequences.

“Ridiculous,” Wesker scoffed. “The plagas as they are have too many unwanted side effect. I would hate for that pretty head of yours to explode just because the parasite got too agitated.”

“ _That’s_ your reason?”

Wesker said nothing further, too busy fishing for something from his pack.

But what had Leon expected? This man wouldn’t know a moral qualm if it dropped an entire load of I beams on his head. He went after what he wanted, by any means neccessary--and he wanted Leon on his side. The only thing that might give him pause would be if the mind-control made Leon less effective. This is who he was sleeping with, Leon thought to himself, a man who would string him up like a puppet without batting an eye.

He had known all of this long before he first dragged Wesker into a closet and had his way with him. Why did it sting now? Because the threat was more real? Because more than just his life was at stake? Or had he lost sight of something, in between seeing Wesker come back for him and fuss over him like a distraught mother hen?

While Leon had this little internal crisis, Wesker was backing them both out of the server room. He tossed a grenade inside and closed the door. It went off with a bang, shocking Leon back to attention. He stared at the door as smoke poured out its edges.

“Happy now?” Wesker asked, unwinding his arm from around Leon’s torso.

“Yeah. Good enough.” Leon stumbled on being released, his aching stomach protesting at having to support his full weight again. Wesker kept a steadying hand pressed flat to one of Leon’s biceps until it was clear Leon wasn’t about to tip over.

“Come. It’s time we left this place.”

Leon tottered after him. He didn’t want to leave just yet. There were still those samples in the green lab he needed to destroy. Leaving with Wesker also meant he’d probably be carted right off to a cell, or locked in the man’s bedroom or something. This, he agreed with Ada about. Wesker wasn’t going to just let him go back to work.

“What’s your exit plan, anyway?” Leon asked.

* * *

Later, Leon stared with a numbing sensation of dread into the overgrown interior of section 12.

“They filming Aliens in there, or what?”

“It seems this lab’s former project involved some kind of fungal-based bioweapon. You shouldn’t go near there without protection. Who knows what the spores might do?”

“I never heard of Umbrella working with fungus before,” Leon said, dubious. “What happened to your sunglasses, anyway?”

“Oh. I forgot.” Wesker pulled the shades from his pocket and slid them on. “I had to take them off to see anything in that damned crawlspace.”

“You forgot?” Leon repeated, incredulous. “I was starting to think the damn things were glued to your face.”

“Considering how often you break or steal them, I find that hard to believe,” Wesker replied archly.

“What can I say? I like your eyes.” Leon shrugged, offering his most winsome smile.

This statement earned him a long stare.

“Really. They don’t give you an unpleasant reminder that I’m a monster, or some silly thing like that?”

“The glowing is kinda weird,” Leon admitted. “But they’re the only viral mutation I’ve ever seen that’s actually pretty.”

Wesker cleared his throat and looked away, his chin lifting, clearly pleased but unwilling to show it.

“My men should be here shortly.” He raised a finger to his earpiece. “King. How far away are you from section 2?”

“Not far,” a voice called from inside the mold nightmare.

A group of men in HCF blue, outfitted with assault rifles and gas masks, appeared from around a corner. Their masks were different from Umbrella’s. They only covered the nose and mouth, with a small glass shield for eye protection.

“Excellent timing,” Wesker remarked.

“Is this our ‘guest’?” the lead man asked, gesturing to Leon.

“Yes. He will be coming with us.”

A little shudder wormed its way down Leon’s spine. It looked like he was stuck now. There wouldn’t be much opportunity to escape while so many eyes were on him.

“Take care with him. He’s recently had invasive surgery and the wound is still healing,” Wesker went on.

“Code blue?” someone asked.

“No.”

The group as a whole seemed to relax. One of the others jogged over to offer Leon a gas mask.

“Wait. You again?” he said.

Leon looked up from the mask, blinking as he recognized the bland square face and blond hair. It was one of the guards who had been watching him before, when he got caught in Wesker’s lab. The less snarky one.

“I’m surprised you remember me,” Leon replied as he put the mask on. To his perspective it could have been yesterday, but to the others 2 weeks had passed.

“Not every day somebody escapes from under the boss’s nose,” the man muttered.

“Report,” Wesker commanded.

“The path is clear,” said their leader. “No movement, no hostiles. There’s not much in there but the mold, sir.”

“Then let’s hurry before someone tries to close the shutters again.”

* * *

Ada’s Report 3

I’ve been kicked from the system. Someone else has taken control of the security shutters. I think I can guess who. There aren’t many culprits left. He’s already caused plenty of trouble. I won’t be able to shut him down unless I can get to the control room itself, and that’s not going to be easy.

I did get a good look at the source of all this disgusting mold on one of the security monitors. It doesn’t look like much, but it managed to wipe out this entire laboratory in under an hour, so I’d better keep my distance from it. The files suggest it was intended to look as harmless as possible. The mold is spreading fast, and it’s only going to get worse now that all the quarantine doors are open.

As much as I hate to say it, it might be best for Leon to stay with Wesker for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I noticed when replaying Separate Ways that Wesker and Ada never mention Leon’s parasite problem, which prompted the thought, does Wesker...not know? Thought I’d run with the idea.


	12. In Which Everyone is Further Distressed by Mold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An enemy appears from the shadows, and Wesker makes the dubious decision to give chase

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fire update: we finally got some rain! the fire’s still burning strong and probably will for weeks, but it’s 80% contained and the sky’s cleared up. So that’s a relief.
> 
> I find the track Claws of the Dead from the Death Stranding soundtrack is a good accompaniment for the third section of this chapter. For no reason in particular. :)

There was a story written into the walls of section 12, if one cared to look. A story told in spent shell casings, fallen weaponry, and the arrangement of the bodies embedded in the mold. Here, a group of scientists had failed to escape the doorway of their laboratory. There, a team of security personnel had gone down, perhaps trying to rescue the scientists, perhaps in the process of abandoning them. They had all been overwhelmed very quickly. The security team had even died in formation. Some of these corpses might have been the very same people he heard screaming over the radio earlier.

“The route’s very roundabout,” King was apologizing as they turned at an intersection. “A lot of pathways are blocked. Between the mold and the structural damage from that explosion earlier--”

“We’ll manage,” Wesker said. “Laymon, stay here and locate the lockdown override in this section. We’ll need it in case someone tries to trap us in section 13.”

“Yes sir.” The named soldier broke off from the team and doubled back. Once they had people in section 18, he would call this man back to join them.

“And I want radio contact every fifteen minutes,” Wesker called after him.

“Yes sir!”

How nice it was to work with people who obeyed him without question. He cast a glance at Leon. By unspoken agreement, his men had corralled Leon into the center of the group. They had to move slow, to accommodate his sluggish pace. He was sagging a lot more than he had been before, his hand now a permanent fixture over his abdomen. Still he remained alert, his eyes scanning their environment constantly for threats, and that was a positive sign.

The mold thickened as they headed west. The outbreak must have spread outward from that direction.

“I keep waiting for some of this gunk to move,” Leon confessed.

“The big mounds pulsate,” Hill told him.

“Enemy sighted!” The call came from the left of the formation. Wesker was already firing at the figure in black that had darted between mounds. The mold formations did little to block their bullets, but they did cut down on visibility.

The team tightened ranks around Leon while Wesker dashed ahead to handle this new pest. It was likely Hunk they were dealing with, and that called for some degree of caution. Wesker doubted anyone else on the Umbrella side was still alive.

A stream of assault rifle fire forced him to duck back into a doorway. Hunk took off around a corner, tossing something over his shoulder that tinked softly on the floor. Wesker took cover just in time to avoid the explosion that followed. Something screamed. Cautiously, Wesker poked his head out. The strands of mold that had been burned by the explosive grenade writhed wildly back and forth before retracting. Very unusual for mold, in his experience.

“Sir?” A tentative voice asked through his earpiece.

“Quarantine lock disabled. Please exhibit caution,” the computer announced over the loudspeakers. Over it, he heard a nearby security shutter creaking open.

“Keep moving,” Wesker commanded shortly.

He arrived at the newly opened shutter in time to watch Hunk disappear beyond it. According to the signage this was section 14, a detour from their route. It would not lead to an exit--if anything, it was going in the opposite direction. He stopped there, considering the area thoughtfully. The mold beyond that barrier had grown so thickly on the ceiling that it blotted out the lights, bathing the area in gloom.

It occurred to him that he may be looking into the very heart of the outbreak. So why would Hunk dare go this way? He knew Hunk, and the man wouldn’t risk charging alone into such a dangerous area unless it was a vital part of his mission. There had to be something important hidden within, and Wesker wanted to know what it was.

His men arrived shortly, with Leon safe between them.

“Did you get him, sir?” King asked.

“He’s in there,” Wesker said, gesturing to the doorway.

“...is he crazy?” Hill muttered.

Between them, Leon eyed the gloom with uncharacteristic silence. He looked as wary about it as Wesker felt. Once again, that childhood riddle came to mind. The real solution, the proper one, was to first take the sheep across, then come back. Then take the cabbage across, bring the sheep back on the return trip, take the wolf across, and finally come back one last time for the sheep. The solution to this situation needn’t be quite so convoluted. Nevertheless, it seemed high time he send Leon to safety on the opposite shore.

“Barker,” Wesker ordered. The named man turned to him. “Take Leon outside to the trucks. No detours, and don’t lose sight of him. The rest of you, with me. We have one of Umbrella’s dogs to catch.”

“This is a trap,” Leon said. “You know that, right?”

“Is that concern I hear?” Wesker’s lips curled into a smirk as he met the agent’s eyes. “Don’t fret so. Hunk has no idea what he’s dealing with. Let him attempt to spring a trap if he wishes. This won’t take long.”

“He’s just one guy. Why even bother?”

Ignoring him, Wesker caught Barker’s eye and jerked his chin to the side. Nodding, Barker took Leon by the arm and pulled him along. His last glimpse of the man’s face showed the picture of inner turmoil. Leon turned away then, his hair falling over his face.

“Can’t say I didn’t warn you. Don’t come crying to me when it all goes pear shaped,” was his parting shot, with an attempted flippancy that only made the genuine worry lurking underneath more noticeable. Wesker wondered if any of his men picked up on it. Silly, for Leon to worry. Hadn’t he learned by now that nothing could truly challenge Wesker?

He turned his back on the retreating pair and slid his sunglasses up with a finger.

Hunk had lived long enough. It was time he paid the price for annoying Wesker one too many times in the past.

* * *

Leon fumed quietly as his newly appointed keeper hauled him along. The hell was Wesker thinking? What could he possibly think was worth chasing Hunk through that nightmare for? Leon had been able to tell after five seconds that nothing good could possibly come of going into section 14.

To tell the truth, he wasn’t that worried about Wesker’s well being. The man was superhumanly tough, after all, and after all they’d been through together it was hard to imagine anything that could kill him. The real source of Leon’s anxiety lay in the words he had overheard on the radio. He knew what Hunk’s mission was. Hunk was going to collect the plaga specimens, and whatever was left of the P-30 samples.

The green lab had to be down that way, through that overgrown section. And here Leon was, being hauled away in the opposite direction. He could only see two equally terrible outcomes from this situation. Either Hunk would successfully make it out with the P-30 and bring it back to Oswell Spencer, possibly trapping and hurting Wesker in the process, or Wesker was going to kill Hunk and find the P-30 himself. Leon couldn’t decide which outcome was worse.

There was a third possibility, which he wasn’t optimistic enough to hope for. It was possible Wesker would kill Hunk, set off the facility self-destruct, and come out to join Leon without ever noticing the P-30 existed.

Leon didn’t think he was lucky enough for that to happen.

He looked to his guard dog, sizing him up. It was the very same blond that Wesker had left in charge of him before. A coincidence? Or had Wesker deliberately chosen the one person who’d had prior experience dealing with Leon?

“So, uh...I don’t think I caught your name” Leon said, to kill the silence.

“It’s Mike,” the man replied.

“Mike, huh. The last Mike I knew was an amazing guy. You’ve got some big shoes to fill.”

Mike gave him a weird look, which he didn’t pay much attention to, lost in images of a burning helicopter. The memories from Spain were close under the skin, today. He blamed the plagas.

They continued on for a while in silence, passing another eerie tableau of bodies trapped in mold. There was so much of the gunk everywhere that it was hard to tell what shape the hallways originally had. Mike led him through a broken section of wall and around a pile of rubble. The mold couldn’t have done that. It looked like damage from some kind of explosion.

“When I get home after this I’m scrubbing my entire apartment down with bleach,” Leon remarked, rubbing at his elbow where it had accidentally brushed a slimy patch of mold.

Mike grunted. Presumably in agreement. It was really hard to tell with Mike.

They came to another intersection. The hallway stretching away to the left was untouched by mold, the one going straight contained more inky hellscape.

“This way?” Leon asked hopefully, pointing to the clean hallway.

“No.”

“You sure?”

“That wasn’t open before. Ignore it. We’re almost there.”

Grumbling under his breath, he followed.

“Just how big is this place?” Leon asked.

Mike shrugged. Such a great conversationalist, that Mike.

They lapsed into silence.

Internally, Leon fretted. No matter how he pressed his brain to the problem, he could not divine a plan to both slip away from Wesker and destroy the samples. He couldn’t run, he couldn’t fight, he had nothing to make a distraction with, and he’d long lost count of the turnings through the disgusting maze of mold. Even if he got away now, he’d be totally lost.

As much as the thought chafed, his only option might be to wait and see. Wesker was going to take Leon with them. If he did get the samples, there would be later opportunities to find and destroy them.

Mike stopped walking so suddenly Leon almost walked into him. He was looking around at the walls, confused.

“What is it?” Leon asked.

“Where’s the opening? It should be right here,” Mike said. He scraped chunks of mold off the wall with his hand, uncovering metal ridges. “Shit. Why is the bay door closed?”

“Lockdown?”

“Can’t be. There wasn’t an alarm.” He pressed a hand to his ear. “Barker to base. Open the bay doors. ...what? Dammit. Alright. We’ll try to find another route.” He closed the channel and glanced at Leon. “The door’s controlled from deeper within the complex, they can’t do anything. We’re going to have to take the specimen elevator up to the lodge and make our way around outside.”

“Specimen elevator?”

Ada had mentioned a ‘lodge’ somewhere above them, too. She seemed to think he could contact help from there. Leon had some very hazy memories of a little rustic bedroom with restraints bolted into the bedframe. It must have been the front for this place. At this point, Leon would take anything that would get him away from this mold.

“C’mon, this way. Looks like you get your wish.”

They doubled back to the earlier intersection, this time taking the untouched hallway.

“It is a lot nicer this way,” Leon said. Now that they’d been forced this direction, he couldn’t bring himself to trust it. Plenty of evil things came in beautiful packages. Wesker himself, for example.

“And longer,” Mike complained. “Hurry up. Let’s get out of here before more doors close on us.”

* * *

As Wesker led the way into section 12, he had to admit that Hunk could not have picked a more perfect stage for an ambush, if that were indeed his plan. The thick carpet of mold muffled the noise of footsteps, and the overgrown lights left plenty of dark shadows for a skilled assassin to hide within. But Hunk was smart, unfortunately, and a smart operative would not try to ambush an entire enemy unit single-handed no matter how nicely the environment suited the purpose.

So far they had encountered nothing but endless, disgusting mold. No Umbrella agents, no BOWs, no visible threats of any kind. _Something_ had killed all of the people down here, so where the hell was it? The longer the calm persisted, the more unquiet Wesker felt.

He heard Barker radio to lift the lockdown on a section and scoffed to himself. Their little saboteur was proving predictable. He or she—Hunk, most likely—was still attempting to isolate Leon. While Wesker did wish for the agent to reach safety as soon as possible, he had had an ulterior motive for separating from him, and that was the hope that Leon might lure away the attention of whoever was behind those controls.

“Look, over there,” Hill spoke up suddenly, breaking Wesker from his thoughts. He pointed the beam of his flashlight at a metal object sticking up from a mound of biomass.

Wesker held up a hand, signaling his team to stay back as he approached. The object was a specimen tank, large enough to comfortably house an adult human. It lay on its side at a diagonal. A forklift sat beside it, all but two wheels and one prong swallowed by mold.

“Ground zero,” Wesker proclaimed, sinking into a crouch while taking care not to let his knees brush any of the gunk. “This must have held the specimen they were transporting, before it escaped and started this whole mess.”

The tank had not been broken. It had been opened. Every inch of its tempered glass was miraculously intact, and the heavy latch on the side hung open. The specimen had not escaped--it had been set loose. But by who? And what was it? He examined the capsule for any hint of a specimen designation, scraping off mold as needed for a better look at the metal.

“C-L 001...” he read out loud. “Why does that sound familiar?”

“Stop right there!” King barked behind him. “Identify yourself!”

Wesker looked up. His men had all turned around, flashlight beams converging on something he couldn't see. A ragged inhale of breath, all too human, possibly male, reverberated in the sudden quiet.

The walls exploded into sudden, violent movement. Long, spindly shadows erupted from the mold and descended with lightning speed on the group of men. The team fell into immediate disarray, firing wildly at the walls and ceiling, their practiced formation scattering before the maelstrom of attackers. Many were swatted off their feet, others hoisted into the air. In the confusion of yelling, gunfire, and blood splatter, even Wesker could not keep track of how many died.

“BOWs!” Bachman screamed from his position on the floor, like they hadn’t already worked that out by now.

“Fall back and regroup!” Wesker shouted. A few men tried to obey him, only to be cut off by a fresh wave of attackers.

The chaos did not leave him untouched for long. A slithering, squelching sound from the nearby wall alerted him to movement. He dashed backward, half a second before something thin and dark swiped down, cut through the air where he had been standing, and embedded itself in the floor.

Up close, he could distinguish five long and glistening fingers with claws at least 3 inches long, attached somewhat rakishly to a distorted trunk with visible cords of tendon, both black and red. A hand. The mold had _hands_. A skeletal arm with far too many bends in it anchored the hand to the wall from which it had sprouted, and there were more coming, fingers budding out from the mold like flowers.

He drew his handgun and fired three precise shots into the hand at his feet, nailing two in the back of the hand and one in the wrist. It shivered and wrenched upward, pulling its 3 inch long claws out of the concrete. When that hand retracted into the biomass, dripping fluids in its wake, three more appeared to replace it.

They grabbed for him, one after another, and he ducked and dodged every one of them. As he tried to put some space between himself and his attackers, a hand from the floor snagged around his leg, sharp claws piercing his calf. A second caught his elbow. He tore his arm free and kicked the other hand off, then used his momentum to wheel around in a high kick that batted away several more grasping hands.

This battle was hopeless. There were an endless amount of the things coming at them from every direction, they could sprout from any surface with a thick enough coating of mold--which the entire section was _covered_ with--and firing at them was as effective as shooting an angry bee swarm. The only option was retreat.

He opened his mouth to call for one, to however many of his men might still be alive to listen, when a sharp impact to the back of his head knocked him forward. The gun jumped from his hand on impact, bouncing away across the floor. On reflex he rolled to the side. He could feel the disturbance of air right against his back as an attack missed him narrowly.

He struggled to his feet, brushing off dozens of clawing fingers the whole way, and squinted through the storm of thrashing limbs and muzzle flashes, struggling to orient himself. In the distance he glimpsed a pale figure walking slowly towards the chaos, hands blooming from the floor on either side of it like bizarre trees. Two of his men stumbled across his line of sight and were swiftly cut down, one getting a claw through the stomach while the other had his lower jaw crushed up into this cranium by a grasping hand. An explosion rattled the hallway as one of the last survivors made use of his grenades, making Wesker curse and flinch back.

The mold screamed--or maybe it was that distant pale figure making the noise, either way it was loud and inhuman. The biomass drew back from the fire and smoke, just as it had when Hunk used a grenade earlier. It didn’t like fire. This would have been handy to know, if he hadn’t _given the last of his grenades to Leon._

There was no time for regret. He spotted his lost firearm at the foot of a mold pillar five feet away, and dashed for it. A hand burst out of the floor, seized the wrist of his outstretched arm, and pulled upward until he was dangling an inch off the ground. All his enhanced strength meant nothing without any leverage to pull from. He grabbed at the fingers with his free hand, squeezing until bone broke. The hand dropped him, only for five more to wrap around his other arm. But he had his feet on the ground again, and when he braced his stance and pulled back the mold-flesh of the appendages slowly started to rip apart under the force.

Which stopped mattering when another half dozen hands wrapped around his legs, and two more caught his other arm, and one tightened around his right shoulder hard enough for the bone to pop out of socket. Claws raked down his back, left bloody trails across the back of his neck before finding purchase around his torso. Feeling all too much like a child’s toy caught between too many fighting toddlers, Wesker struggled to get his less restrained arm close enough to his equipment to grab his knife. His fingers brushed not the hilt of the knife, but the smooth cylinder of an incendiary grenade. He’d forgotten that Leon had given him one back.

A cold hand wrapped around his neck from behind and squeezed, snapping his neck for the second time that day. Spinal nerves severed, Wesker went limp, his head lolling down at an unnatural angle. Though unable to move for the moment, he remained awake and uncomfortably aware. The last of his mens’ screams died in gurgles. Wesker couldn’t even manage that much, given the pulped condition of his trachea. He couldn’t feel much below the neck, either.

It would heal. Already, he could feel the movement in his throat, structures beginning to regrow. He fought down panic and pain and let his eyes fall nearly shut, playing dead to buy himself time. The hands still held him tightly, their support the only thing keeping him upright. The one on his neck loosened its grip, the long fingers draping over his shoulders. Unnaturally long, those fingers, about twice the size of a human’s.

Around him, the bodies of his men dangled from other hands like raw meat in a butcher's freezer. No one had survived.

Only one thing still moved: the pale figure which had been slowly approaching throughout the attack. At a glance it looked human, harmless even; a thin, trembling, frail man dressed in gray rags that may once have been a hospital gown. Its eyes, so naturally wide and anxious by default, appeared utterly lost and confused as they drank in the scene. Yet that expression was fixed, as if painted on its face, and it waded into the scene of carnage without hesitation.

The first body it reached belonged to the deceased point man, King, who was dangling from claws hooked through his ribs. The BOW raised its trembling hands to clasp the dead man's shoulder. With one hand it turned the head this way and that, examining the face as if it were searching for something. It pulled the head back farther and farther, past the point where the neck gave with a sharp crack. If the point man weren't dead already, he would be now.

The BOW lunged forward and drove its teeth into the exposed neck, ripping out a great chunk from the throat in a spray of gore. It chewed and swallowed the morsel before diving in for another bite. So, it still ate meat, whatever it was.

Wesker was almost finished healing. His trachea had re-inflated, allowing him to breathe, and the disks in his spine were slowly popping back into place, forcing his head to tilt back into alignment. The sudden stinging sensations from all the claws hooked in him meant his nerves were back online as well.

The limp hand draped over the back of his neck twitched, its thumb coming to rest over his pulse point. The BOW froze with its open mouth embedded in the corpse's neck. It abandoned its feasting to look directly at him, its wide, gray eyes fixed on his face. Wesker held his breath, staying as still as possible. It couldn't possibly know. He'd barely moved.

Repeating this to himself did nothing to stop the BOW from approaching him. He had its unwavering attention, and the hands holding him had begun to tighten and shift.

So much for playing dead. Wesker surged upward, struggling to break free. He was still weak, not fully healed, and there were so many hands on him, each superhumanly strong. Yet they were fragile, despite their strength. When he pulled hard enough he ripped numerous hands from their roots in the biomass below him, and if he could just free one arm that was all he needed to use his last--

Pain.

It exploded through his back and out his chest. Wet, warm blood soaked down his shirt. He coughed a fine mist of red. The bloodied tips of four inhuman claws quivered before his eyes, emerging from somewhere below his collar bone. One of the hands--perhaps the same one that had broken his neck before--had just run him through. Once again, he couldn’t breathe. Every attempt to expand his diaphragm seemed to draw in blood instead of air. His knees buckled, dropping him back down to the floor.

The hand pulled back out, allowing a small river of blood to flow from the hole. His damaged heart faltered in his chest. Even a normal human could survive a few minutes without a heart, he told himself. This, too, would heal.

Not fast enough. He passed out from the lack of blood flow before all the damage could repair itself.

When he came to, the first beats of his revived heart reverberating through his chest like a drum beat, his first sight was a pair of bare, narrow feet, splattered over with red and black smears. He dragged his gaze upwards, to the deathly pale face staring down at him through a curtain of greasy, ashen brown hair. The BOW stood with its head tilted slightly to one side, a light furrow between the brows its only expression. No doubt it had never encountered prey that wouldn’t stay dead. Wesker took in deep lungfuls of air and braced himself, waiting for a third attack.

What he got instead were the cold, tacky fingers of the BOW gliding up his face, settling on his cheekbones--he’d lost his gas mask somewhere in the scuffle. It found his sunglasses and tugged them off, making Wesker grimace as the plastic scraped down his face. The shades fell to the floor, revealing his eyes.

The BOW leaned forward, staring with utter fascination. The cradling hands cupped his cheeks, the thumbs stroking the skin beneath his eyes. There was clear intelligence in its eyes, struggling to work things out, to fit him into place. The BOW clearly had no context for a being like himself. Just how smart was it?

A nail drew sharply down his cheek, slicing open the skin. Wesker tried and failed to flinch back against the strong grip holding his face still. Such a shallow cut healed within seconds, and the BOW made a rasping, inquisitive noise in response. A fleeting, cruel smile flashed over its face, the look of a little boy who has just learned what fun it is to rip wings off of flies.

Great. It seemed he had been upgraded from ‘prey’ to ‘toy.’

The cold hands folded around his temples, began to push his head to one side with inhuman strength. Wesker was strong enough to resist having his neck broken a third time, if only just. The BOW did not force the matter. It didn’t even seem aware there were fragile, important bones in a human neck that its actions might jeopardize. It was staring at the side of his head.

Wesker had not been sitting quietly this whole time. Carefully, subtly, he had been inching one hand back, the progress made agonizingly slow by the hard grip of the hands on him. His fingers groped for the cylinder shape of the incendiary grenade hanging from his belt. The pad of one finger slid over the top of it, close enough to touch but not grab.

“Captain! Anyone! The door--” Laymon yelled over his earpiece.

The BOW grabbed suddenly at the upper shell of his ear and pulled, ripping it slowly away from his head. Wesker failed to bite back a scream. The BOW paused, distracted by the sound. Once more it began to pull his ear, studying his face as it did. He clenched his teeth, refusing to break under the scrutiny. Before the ear came off completely, it adjusted its grip, taking only his ear piece without the ear still attached to it. Wesker panted through his teeth, his ear sluggishly reattaching its torn upper half while the BOW examined his ear piece.

Laymon was yelling loudly enough that Wesker could hear tinny strains of his voice emitting from the little speaker, even at this distance. The BOW raised the device toward its ear, its brows collapsing together in a heavy furrow. After a few seconds it snarled and threw the device away. The plastic dinged softly off a wall somewhere.

“...can you understand me?” Wesker asked it.

It looked at him, face blank as ever. So perhaps the answer was ‘no’. Its gaze shifted to Wesker’s bared throat. The mouth slit open, revealing blunt omnivore teeth no different from Wesker’s own. The ease with which it had torn the captain’s throat out owed much to the strength of its jaw. It lunged towards his neck.

Wesker’s fingers closed on the grenade. He pulled the pin, released the trigger and tossed it to his feet. Flames burst upward, engulfing them both, licking eager trails up the arms of mold. The BOW backed away, screaming, and Wesker took advantage of its distraction to break free. The pain of the fire burning up his arms seemed a small sacrifice in exchange for escape. He threw himself to one side and rolled, putting the fire out. The BOW had never had any fire safety lessons apparently--it flailed, screaming, its whipping arms only fanning the flames.

He did not stick around to watch. The moment he had his feet under him he ran at full tyrant speed, the moldy halls blurring around him. He ran until he was out of section 14, into the clean hallways of one of the four storage rooms that circled the central control room. Here he pressed his back against a wall and sagged, fighting to catch his breath.

“What the hell was that?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original monstrosity do not steal :P
> 
> I decided fairly early on that I wanted to use a mold BOW, but on rereading the files from 7 I realized--as some of you have too--that Evie wasn't going to work with my timeline due to not, uh, being born yet.
> 
> But she's E series, right? And we know an earlier D series also existed. So it stands to reason that there was also an A series, B series, and a C series before that. Therefore I could make up a prototype from an earlier line, hence: C-L. We'll find out more about him later :) 
> 
> Alsoooo if anyone is getting confused by my lab facility layout, I drew a map! You can find it on my tumblr here: https://cobwebcorner.tumblr.com/post/627979394934243328/for-anyone-following-my-fanfic-sas-heres-the


	13. In Which the Mold is Explained

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elevator trouble: the revenge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s a hobby of mine to show RE 7 files to my friend who is really into biology and watch her mentally implode into fits of “what??? WHAT???? Mold doesn’t work like that?!?!! Are you sure this is not a prion?!?!?!”  
> Resident Evil! Where the BOWs are all magic and the science doesn’t matter. I just try to stay consistent with the game files, I don’t try to make this stuff make actual sense. XD

Ada’s Report #4

Even though I knew the extent of the outbreak, I wasn’t expecting what I would have to trudge through on this leg of the mission. Gross doesn’t begin to cover it. Still, it doesn’t smell quite as bad as the sewers back in Raccoon. At least there aren’t any acid-spitting giant spiders around here.

I saw Hunk run up against Wesker’s men. Hunk is a skilled enough agent to leave no doubt in my mind that he orchestrated the encounter deliberately. He wanted to lure Wesker into section 14, and Wesker took the bait.

It worked just as he wanted. All those shiny new toys kept the BOW distracted while Hunk slipped by unscathed. But, he wasn’t counting on me following suit. I found the control room and was able to disable any and all remote access to the security system. That means Hunk won’t be able to play with the shutters anymore, not without being in this room. Now I just have to get to the objective before he does. He doesn’t seem to realize he’s in a race, just yet. It’s very tempting to reveal myself to him, just to get a little payback for last Christmas.

* * *

Section 21 contained some kind of residential area, with a full cafeteria on one side and rooms full of bunk beds crammed together on the other. Large pexiglass windows let them see into the dark living quarters from the hall. Talk about no privacy. Leon had seen more spacious digs on cargo ships. Scattered personal effects distinguished the rooms from each other, loose clothes and posters, nothing useful. He was pleased nevertheless to see some new scenery. Endless laboratories got boring after a while.

The farther they went the more he lagged behind Mike, and not even on purpose. Every hallway he had to walk down seemed exponentially longer and more painful to cross than the last. Mike stopped and turned, waiting for him to catch up, the only sign of his growing frustration a slight furrow in his brow.

The image of the man in combat gear looking back at him jostled something loose from his memories.

“This feels familiar,” he said, frowning at a flickering light in the ceiling. “I think I’ve been here before.

Mike studied him. Very quiet, serious guy, this Mike.

“If you were a specimen here, they would have brought you along this way from the elevator,” he offered at last. “Boss didn’t say much about what you’re doing here. Just that you weren’t infected.”

Leon scratched the back of his neck. “I managed to get myself kidnapped by the same people who assaulted your lab, that’s all. Whatever the hell happened here, it interrupted them before they could do anything really creative to me.”

“Is that so.” Mike snorted. “If you’d stayed put with us instead of running off, you wouldn’t be here now.”

“Sorry about choking you out,” Leon said, though he’d have done it again in a heartbeat. “You’re not still sore about that, are you?”

Mike’s patient stare darkened into a glower.

“Anyway,” Leon continued, “I don’t know where I would have ended up, but I’m not sure this is worse.”

He’d caught up finally, and Mike fell into step beside him.

“You’re getting there in the end anyway,” Mike pointed out. “The boss made it pretty clear. You’re coming with us.”

“Guess I’m not in a position to argue.” Leon grimaced at a twinge from his abdomen. They were getting worse, and more frequent. He had a bad feeling that he might have popped a stitch.

“Hey, uh. You and the boss...” Mike began, only to awkwardly trail off.

Leon glanced to the side, careful to keep his face neutral.

“Are you guys fucking?”

A gas mask could hide a lot of things--blushing, gawping, a sudden new sheen of sweat--but it didn’t hide the way his eyes popped wide like headlights beaming out shock and guilt. His eyes slid away to focus on something, anything, that wasn’t the other man’s face. He’d been afraid this conversation might come up, he just hadn’t been expecting the other man to be so blunt about it.

“It’s none of my business,” Mike rushed on, “I’m just trying to understand what’s going on here. I’ve never seen him act the way he does around you. And bringing you back with us? Why?”

“It’s complicated,” Leon managed.

“I saw your phone lockscreen, too. Not that I’ve ever seen the boss naked, but that hair is pretty...”

“Distinctive?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.” Leon cleared his throat. “Things’ve happened a time or two. I wouldn’t exactly call it a relationship.”

“’Course not. I know better than that. Boss doesn’t _date_ , that would be too...” he struggled after the right word. “Human.”

“I’ll let you in on a secret,” Leon said. “Wesker _is_ human. A cold, evil-minded and selfish son of a bitch, but still a human, no matter how much he likes to pretend otherwise.”

“How long have you guys been _not-dating_?”

“Long as I’ve known him. A little over a year now.”

“And you’ve survived?”

“Surviving,” Leon said sardonically, “is what I do best.”

Mike appeared to digest this for a minute. He huffed a little laugh to himself. “I’ve heard of being in bed with the government,” he said, “but wow.”

The unexpected flare of humor caught Leon so off guard that it startled a laugh out of him, which his sore abdomen made him regret immediately.

“I should use that one,” he gasped through the pain.

“Just don’t tell him I said it first. In fact, just forget we ever had this conversation. I don’t want to know what the boss would do if he knew that I knew.”

Wesker wasn’t the one who would be in deep shit if people found out about them, Leon thought. He imagined Chris and Jill breaking his door down at 4 in the morning and repressed a shudder. Give him Hunters any day of the week.

“Don’t worry about it,” Leon said.

Why had he kept that damn lockscreen on his burner phone to start with? It was a risk, he’d known it was a risk, like leaving a mistress’s lipstick kiss on a shirt collar and hiding it in the back of the closet. True, neither his nor Wesker’s faces could clearly be seen in it--the photo had been taken from behind Wesker’s bare shoulder, capturing only part of the back of his head and the corner of a smirk, and Leon’s own hair obscured everything that wasn’t pressed into Wesker’s neck. But as Mike had just proved, anyone who knew them well enough could still make the connection. In his line of work an unfortunately high number of people knew about Wesker.

He never could seem to stop himself from playing with fire. He’d thought it would be funny, if he were captured on mission, for an enemy to look at his burner phone and be scandalized. Maybe there was a part of him that wanted to broadcast their relationship. Or maybe it was just the thrill of keeping that secret close at hand, of being able to pull the phone out at any time and glance at that moment, rare as red diamond, when himself and Wesker and Ada had all come together with warmth and passion and not let any work get between them (until work crashed through the window and shot at them, but never mind that). For once, they’d all let themselves be human, and even a little soft.

He wondered sometimes if he’d ever have that moment back. If Wesker or Ada would let him.

At last, they reached a pair of big steel industrial doors, which Mike waved him through.

“Elevator should be right here,” Mike said. He needn’t have said anything. Leon could see the ‘elevator’ sign next to the doors, too. “The sooner we get out to the vans, the sooner you can stop being my problem.”

“Aw, Mike. You that anxious to get rid of me?”

“I didn’t sign up for babysitting,” came the terse reply. “Just get in.”

Leon went through the doors and immediately noticed a problem. The specimen elevator was one of those big platform elevators with a small bit of safety railing. An overturned forklift loaded with some big metal boxes sat half-on the platform, in the ideal position to jam the elevator.

“...looks like they were in the middle of something,” Leon observed.

“Boss said the outbreak started with a specimen transfer gone wrong,” Mike said. He sighed. “We’ll need to move this.”

“Hey, I’m not supposed to do any heavy lifting,” Leon said, raising his hands palms out.

“We probably couldn’t move it even if we did work together.” Mike bent down to try anyway. He got the containers detached from the prongs, but even with a lighter load, wasn’t able to budge the vehicle at all. “Dammit. This thing weighs a ton.”

Leon subtly sagged against a nearby wall, easing some of the weight off his abdomen.

“Wesker could move it.”

“Are you serious? You want me to ask the boss to come down here for this?” Mike demanded. From his tone, you would think Leon had just asked him to call Wesker for a glass of warm milk.

“No harm trying,” Leon said. He took his radio from the pocket it was clipped to and pressed the button. “Wesker?”

They waited, Mike staring with unchecked incredulity while Leon remained serene. There was no response.

“Damn. Ok, let me try yours.”

“You’re not getting my radio.”

“You call him, then.”

A short battle of wills followed, Mike wavering with his lightly mortified expression, Leon staring him down expectantly. Mike caved first and pressed the button on his earpiece.

“Barker to Wesker, come in. We need assistance.”

There was still no response.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d be worried,” Leon said. The last time Wesker had failed to answer one of his calls, the man been busy acting as a pincushion in the center of a nasty spear trap. There shouldn’t have been any such traps here in the underground lab, but, then again it was Umbrella.

And he’d last seen Wesker charging into an extremely nasty biohazard in pursuit of the only Umbrella operative wily enough to survive Raccoon City. Traps came in more than one form.

He had a bad feeling, suddenly.

“Damn. Alright,” Mike said. Then added, for good measure, “Okay.” He paced up and down in front of the fallen forklift, muttering to himself. “We need to find something that can move this. Maybe another forklift? Where would I even start looking...”

Leon let his eyes drift closed. He didn’t doze off again--didn’t dare--there just wasn’t anything happening that was worth the energy of keeping his eyelids open.

“...hey? Mr. government agent? What’s wrong with you?”

“I’ve got a name you know,” Leon grumbled. He cracked his eyes open. Mike had stopped pacing to stare at him.

“Something’s wrong with your stomach, right? You’re sure you’re not infected?”

“Yeah, something’s wrong. It’s got an incision through it. That’s what ‘invasive surgery’ means.”

“Oh, right.” The wariness didn’t go away. “You’re not going to keel over on me, are you? You don’t look good.”

“I really need to be horizontal for a while,” Leon said. He’d never realized how much he used his abs just to stay upright before he had a big cut through them.

“We just passed all those bedrooms. Why don’t you lie down for a while, and I can find a way to clear this junk.”

He hadn’t even considered it. There was rarely time to rest during a biohazard like this. The area had seemed pretty clear so far. They hadn’t run into a single monster, and the mold hadn’t spread here yet. It should be safe--for a while.

“Sounds like a plan.”

The real struggle was convincing his body to push off the wall and walk some more. They backtracked to the nearest bedroom, where Leon nudged a forgotten towel off one bottom bunk and then gingerly lowered himself on to it.

“Christ,” he groaned. “Bury me here, I don’t think I can get back up again.”

“If you’re lucky, you won’t need to. Not for a while.” Mike looked up from something on his belt he’d been fiddling with, caught Leon’s wrist, and before he knew it there was a small click as metal fastened around his arm.

“Wha--hey!”

Mike ignored him, securing the other end of the cuff to the bedpost.

“No running off this time,” he instructed as he left. “Just stay here and rest. I’ll be back soon.”

“If a BOW comes in--!” Leon tried to protest, but Mike had already gone out the door.

Huffing, Leon let his arms flop down to the mattress. He consoled himself that at the very least, he still had Wesker’s incendiary grenades, just in case something needed to be set on fire.

* * *

At just that very moment Wesker was staggering along on unsteady legs and contemplating the fact that if Leon had not given that one grenade back, he would not have escaped his predicament. He wondered what Leon would think of that.

His body ached and burned, the pierced insides still in the middle of knitting back in proper order. His superior healing would take care of the damage within a few more minutes, provided he hadn’t already overtaxed himself.

It wasn’t the best situation. His men were gone, his own radio destroyed, all he had left on him was his knife and magnum, and he had an enemy behind him which seemed very unimpressed by bullets. Fortunately, the BOW had shown no signs of pursuit thus far. He had made good progress through the massive specimen storage room, which was much more open in design than any of the other sections. He passed a row of specimen tanks, each one containing a T-00 series BOW floating in peaceful stasis, their gargantuan forms distorted lightly by the waver of light within the liquid. These sleeping guardians would have been very useful in combating the outbreak, if only any of the staff here had had he chance to wake them.

He fixed them in mind for later and moved on through the door at the far end of the room. Beyond it he found the central control room, his current goal. It was nothing much to write home about. A bank of monitors surrounded a console with several keyboards and a lone wheeled office chair at the center of the dim room. A cabinet to one side housed several pairs of special gloves covered in wires and sensors.

This was just the sort of place where he felt right at home. He eased himself into the chair, noting the seat was slightly warm. Someone had been here, recently. Hunk, perhaps. This was the hub from which he could control all the shutters and take care of their little lockdown problems.

His first order of business was to shut off section 14, and then 27 and 29 as well, for good measure. That ought to fully cut off the BOW from reaching him. Next, he had a look at the monitors. There were far more security feeds here than there had been in the small security room, and roughly half of them were blacked out. No doubt he had the mold to thank for that.

Movement flickered across one of the remaining cameras. One of his own men was wandering alone down a clean hallway. Who was he and what was he doing? The only HCF man who could be left in the complex was Barker, who should have finished escorting Leon outside by now. Even if they had run against an obstacle, Leon should have been with him.

Wesker reflexively reached for his ear before remembering his radio was lost. His lips pulled back into an unconscious snarl as he scanned the many monitors, hunting for a figure in a lab coat. If that idiot had lost Leon...

He unclipped the stolen Umbrella radio from his belt and turned it on. It was a single frequency radio, just like the ones his forces used, so he couldn’t use it to talk to his own men. Only two people might still be listening to it, and he was hoping one of them had not thrown his away yet. He pressed the talk button.

“Leon?”

A pause.

“ _There_ you are. We tried to contact you earlier.”

“Where are you right now.” A demand, not a question.

“I’m in the residential area.”

Wesker located the security feeds for that area and relaxed. There was Leon, stretched out on one of the beds. He must have gotten too tired to walk any longer. On closer inspection, one of his arms was bent up awkwardly by his head, the wrist apparently attached to the bedpost. Wesker could not restrain a smirk. Leon had gotten himself handcuffed to a bed, and Wesker hadn’t been involved. Perhaps he ought to feel jealous.

“I take it you weren’t able to reach the trucks.”

“We hit a few hurdles. Right now, I’m sitting on my ass trying to feel less like death while my bodyguard looks for a way to move the forklift blocking the elevator. I know you could move it--why didn’t you answer earlier?”

“I was occupied,” Wesker replied. “We encountered the BOW responsible for this whole mess.”

On the screen, Leon tried to sit up, winced, and laid back down.

“You’re sure?”

“It was able to control the mold somehow. I’m in the middle of finding more information as we speak.” This was not an exaggeration. Wesker was busy rewinding through the security feeds, searching for the point before the blocked out cameras had gone offline. “For now I’ve locked it in section 14, but as it seems able to breach the grates in the crawlspace, I would not expect it to stay there long.”

His search bore fruit. One of the dark feeds abruptly burst into a blur of grays. He paused the rewind and let the footage play. The camera was fixed on a desolate corner, around which a lanky figure in torn hospital gown swayed. A creeping tide of black followed at his heels, rippling over the floor like a river of ants. The mold swallowed the walls in less than twenty seconds, and then the camera went dark.

“And how many of your men are still alive?” Leon asked, his tone knowing.

“I’m afraid we suffered 100% casualties.” Wesker sighed. Some of those men hadn’t been half bad. Hill had even survived more than 2 missions.

“100--wait a minute, are you counting yourself?”

“I would not advise engaging the BOW if you can help it. It is far more formidable than it appears.” He finished isolating some still images from the security footage and used the computer to send them off to a secure email account. “Fire seemed effective.”

“And me without my flamethrower.”

“We should regroup and get out as soon as possible. I would tell you to stay put, but it looks like I don’t have to worry about that.”

On the monitor, Leon’s head jolted up and turned side to side, searching.

“You can see me somehow, can’t you.”

“I found the control room,” Wesker informed him smugly.

“You always find the control room,” Leon complained. “Next time, I get the cushy seat with the monitors, and you can get handcuffed to a bed.”

“Sounds like an interesting evening,” Wesker purred. “Just remember: no heroics.” He clipped the radio back on his belt, turning his full attention to the monitors. It was high time he figured out exactly what he was dealing with, and he had a suspicion the answers were closer to home than he had first suspected. Umbrella had never worked with mold or fungus-based Bioweapons before, but he knew a company that had.

A pop-up on the computer informed him the files had finished sending. His own cell phone couldn’t get any reception underground, but the control room was equipped with a landline which he promptly used to dial one of his contacts.

“It’s Wesker.”

“No, the data isn’t restored yet, but I can whip the techies if you think that will help,” a thickly accented female voice answered by way of greeting. Dr. Iva Natale, his head of research. He knew he could count on her to still be awake and at work this early in the morning. She took after William, that way.

“Dr. Natale,” Wesker greeted in reply. “If you would stop harassing the tech support for a moment, I need you to look something up in the greater HCF database.”

“Hmh. Alright.” A door clicked closed, muffling the background chatter. He heard the sharp clicking of heels against tile, followed by a minute of typing. “What am I looking for?”

“I’ve sent you some footage of an unknown BOW,” he said. “I want you to find a match in our files.”

A minute of silence passed as she checked the files.

“Looks like something Ferris would make. Give me a minute.”

He let her work, scanning the camera feeds to see where Barker had gone.

“As I thought. That is the C-L prototype.”

“And when was it reported stolen?”

A long pause.

“It isn’t. The system says it is still safe in our Caribbean labs. The lucky bastards haven’t been raided once. I guess the cruise line front really works.”

“How recently was the database updated?”

“No idea.”

“Call that laboratory and see what they have to say about that specimen. Don’t let on that I’m in the call.”

“Ohh,” She crooned, intrigued, “is this some of your spy shit?”

Wesker hummed noncommittally.

There was a loud electronic thud, followed by touch tones. The phone rang twice before a gruff male voice answered it.

“Is Dr. Ferris around, Alan?” Iva asked.

“Yeah hang on, he’s just coming out of the chemical storage. Dr. Ferris!”

The phone passed to a higher pitched, more nasal male.

“Hello?”

“Yes, this is Dr. Natale. Is everything alright down there?”

“Yes? Why wouldn’t it be?” Dr. Ferris asked, bewilderment obvious.

“Just checking. Actually, I have had an idea for a new avenue to pursue in my research, but I will need a sample from one of your specimens.”

“I thought you were working on the T-Veronica virus? I don’t see how any of our fungi or prions could be useful to you.”

Iva paused for a second. Wesker could imagine her frantically scrolling through the specimen’s file for ideas.

“T-Veronica was based on genetic code taken from an ant species,” she said. “And one of your reports states your pet fungus has an unusual effect on insects.”

“Ahhh, yes! I had not considered such an interaction before. Which specimen were you interested in?”

“The C-L prototype looks the most promising.”

“...are you sure? The D series has proved far more stable and I’m sure it will have the same effects.”

“No, we really need something from the C-L prototype.”

Wesker fancied he could hear the doctor’s pulse racking up even over the phone.

“If you want a sample, you’ll have to go through the proper channels. I don’t have time for this.”

He hung up.

Iva hissed an unflattering word in Romanian. “You owe me a coffee,” she informed Wesker shortly.

“I think I can do better than that,” Wesker replied, a little smile pulling at his cheek.

“Something is going on, yes? That was _suspicious_. And why did he know what I was working on?”

“I suspect I know. I will handle it. In the meantime, send me all the information we have on this C-L prototype.”

He hung up, smug that his little hunch had been correct. He knew he had heard the designation C-L somewhere before, in passing. So, Dr. Ferris thought he could get away with selling old specimens to Oswell Spencer, did he? He had only met the man once, and from what he recalled, the doctor was a twitchy, prissy sort of man, not the kind one would expect to have the balls to sell company secrets. Wesker had learned long ago to reserve judgment in such matters. Anyone could turn out to be a thief or a spy--Steve Burnside’s blundering father came to mind.

The matter would have to wait.

He divided his attention between tracking the monitors and skimming through the information Iva had sent him. By habit he went to skip over the short section explaining the subject’s origins, but, remembering Leon and the incident at Arcadia, went back to check it over. He had learned that sometimes there was useful information buried in a BOW’s pre-weapon days.

_Subject: C-L 001_

_Age: 44_

_Height: 6’3”_

_Weight: 134 lb_

_Volunteer from trial study for experimental dementia treatments. Subject was ostracized from his family years ago and has no friends other than one SO who is eligible for a different experiment. No one will miss him. This, combined with his progressing aphasia, makes him an ideal candidate. Series A and B have shown that the bacterium does not degrade intelligence nearly as much as T-family viruses. This way, even if the subject realizes what is happening to him or tries to escape, he will not be able to report us._

Wesker frowned to himself. Already, the major flaw in this project glared out at him like a nail sticking up from a carpet.

_April 9th_

_Bacterium infusion successful. So far, C-L 001 has not suffered any of the crippling migraines which interfered with development of A and B series. Minders report that he has been ‘zoning out’ more and more often, and seems to be experiencing mild nausea._

_April 21st_

_Cell samples show subject’s body has begun producing the mold at a far faster rate than previous series. Early yesterday subject vomited some of the excess biomatter. Mold appears inert for now, but this is a promising development. Faster mold production means the subject will be able to release more spores and create a larger number of molded._

_April 29th_

_Subject became completely unresponsive to stimulus for three days straight, after which he expelled the largest amount of excess biomatter any specimen has produced at one time. The entire testing chamber was covered floor to ceiling with the mass, which grouped together in pillars not unlike stalagmites. Mold still appears inert after initial growth phase, which is becoming worrisome. At this stage half of A series and most of B series demonstrated clear control over the mold, inducing it to form macrocolonies that would viciously attack intruders._

_C-L 001’s combat applications will be severely limited if he cannot do the same._

_May 3rd_

_This is the seventh time in a row that subject’s expelled biomass has covered the viewing window and all the cameras. Is this behavior deliberate? We have decided to start posting guards in the room with him at all times, just in case._

_May 4th_

_Our fears have been dispelled. Subject does demonstrate ability to control mold for combat purposes. It took the death of 5 security guards to discover this fact, but they are easily replaced. C-L 001 does not form independently moving molded the way B-N 003 or B-R 002 did. His molded only take the form of hands, which remain rooted wherever they sprout. We will begin testing tomorrow to see how far a radius his control has. I’ve already asked Alan to round up the oldest and most poorly performing of our security staff for the tests._

_May 5th_

_Casualty rate 90%. Control radius somewhere between 1-2 meters. Subject is reluctant to move while mold is active, perhaps suggesting the action requires great concentration. He can be induced to follow prey if sufficiently provoked._

_June 19th_

_Subject displays increasing frustration with inability to understand language, which has culminated in several violent outbursts. All staff interacting with subject are advised not to speak to him, or converse with each other while he is in earshot. Two of the assistants have noted stark changes in subject’s personality. He seems more ‘with it’, and will carefully watch anyone who enters the room with him. Attempts to gauge his remaining intelligence have been frustrated by his pre-existing condition._

_June 23rd_

_We have badly underestimated the range from which C-L001 can control his molded. His range is 6 meters minimum--I cannot give a more accurate assessment due to the size limit of the testing chamber. Staff trapped in the chamber with him were attacked and killed without provocation, a sudden and stark behavioral shift. Killed is perhaps too clean a word. Subject held them down with his molded and calmly mutilated them himself. C-L seemed almost unaware of the pain he was causing. It was as if he was studying them, cataloging their reactions to various stimuli. He also ate some of their flesh, which is very unusual for a BOW of this line._

_We had no choice but to torch the room. C-L 001 suffered some burn damage, but survived. Senior staff will be meeting later today to determine what to do with the specimen. Despite behavioral problems, on a genetic level, C-L has proved the most stable of any specimens to date. It would be a waste to dispose of it._

_July 8th_

_We have come to a unanimous decision to place C-L 001 in storage and shift attentions to C-Q 008. C-L has become too violent and unpredictable to work with safely. Flamethrowers will be placed in all security stations, in case of stasis failure. Alan has proposed that our next series of BOWs utilize developing fetuses instead of grown adults, to avoid the psychological issues this one developed. The idea has merit._

“Congratulations,” Wesker said to the empty room. “You created the perfect storm: a BOW smart enough to trick you, but completely incapable of taking orders.”

He shook his head. That subject would never have been entered into the trials if he were in charge. BOWs had enough issues with mental degradation without throwing _pre-existing dementia_ into the mix. Alas, he could not personally control every lab. A shame to see such a promising experiment ruined by poor test subject selection.

He filed away the information that C-L turned extra violent when spoken to. It seemed neither C-L nor his mold pets were fond of fire, and standard anti-fungal measures such as bleach and other antibiotics were also listed as effective. As Wesker hadn’t thought to bring a bucket of Lysol with him, he would just have to get his grenades back from Leon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hunk, quietly to himself, as Wesker and Leon start flirting over his comms AGAIN: I can’t throw away the radio in case backup comes. I can’t throw away the radio in case backup comes. I can’t throw away the radio in case backup comes.


	14. In Which C-L Has a Minor Disagreement with Several Walls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leon meets a new friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Starting to wish I had timed my updates differently so these parts would be hitting closer to Halloween, but oh well! Enjoy.

Ada’s Report 5

We were both closing in on the finishing line in this little race when Hunk suddenly changed course. I had a bad feeling I knew what he was going for, so I followed him.

Neither of us were expecting to run into the BOW. I'd heard it making a racket earlier but I hadn't realized it had come so far in. It was lurking just outside the control room, trying to find a way inside. I suppose those walls must have extra reinforcement. That's the only security design in this place that's made any sense so far.

Unfortunately, Hunk caught its attention before he noticed it, and when he tried to run from it he spotted me. The two of us exchanged a few bullets and then had to run for it when the BOW caught up.

I think I've lost both of them, for now. I'm a little too far south of where I want to be, so I’ll have to backtrack. I'd better wait until I'm sure the coast is clear.

That BOW might not be the only monster prowling around this facility anymore. As I was running through storage, I couldn't help noticing one of the Tyrant tanks was empty.

* * *

Leon was not dozing. It was far too dangerous to do such a thing here, away from the safety of Wesker’s arms (Jesus Christ, did he just think that sentence?). What he was doing was admiring the dark on the inside of his eyelids, basking in the sheer underrated bliss of being horizontal, and relaxing as the intense throbbing in his midsection eased down. Sure, the incision still hurt like a bitch to the point that he would have arm-wrestled a tyrant for a shot of morphine, but overall his quality of life had improved greatly by the simple use of a bed.

He couldn’t tell how much time had passed. If any of the residents had owned a clock, they hadn’t left it out where he could see it from this angle, and Mike hadn’t left him a watch. It might have been anywhere from 5 minutes to 5 hours. There had been no sign of Wesker yet. Fortunately, there had been no appearances by any other monsters either, a small miracle really.

No sooner had he tempted fate with that observation then a crash like a medieval battering ram rumbled through the facility. Leon and his bed rattled from the force of the noise. He did not sit up--he’d learned already that attempting to sit straight up was a bad idea--instead he lay still and turned his gaze to what he could see out the hallway window. Nothing. Swallowing, he picked up his radio and thumbed the button.

“Hey, Wesker? You didn’t just break down any walls, did you?”

“No. What’s happened?”

“Just heard a loud noise. Sounded big. And angry.”

“How far away?”

“The next hall maybe? I don’t know.”

“Dammit.”

Wesker cut off. Leon took it for granted that the man was hurrying to him, and wouldn’t be much longer.

Another bang, louder and closer, shook the floor under him.

“Better stop laying around. I don’t think I want to meet that guy,” Leon muttered to himself.

He twisted up on one shoulder, searching the bed around him for anything he could use to pick the lock on the cuffs. His frantic pawing turned up nothing useful, just as it hadn’t the last six times he looked.

A _third_ bang, and a lamp stationed on one of the bed stands toppled to the floor.

There was nothing else for it. Grimacing in anticipation of what he was about to do, Leon grabbed his own hand. A careful application of pressure in the right spot dislocated his thumb. The sharp pain wasn’t as bad as he remembered, maybe because he had the cut through his gut to compare it to. With his thumb out of joint, he was able to wiggle his hand out through the cuff. That was a trick the service had taught him, though he didn’t have to use it very often. Thank god Mike had handcuffed his non-dominant hand.

As soon as he was free, he popped the thumb back into place and got up by gently rolling on his side and pushing up with his good arm. The bedroom, stark and barren as it was, offered no good hiding places whatsoever. The beds weren’t even high enough for him to crawl underneath. So he crept up to the window, double checking that the coast was still clear before venturing out into the hall. From there he chose a door in the opposite direction to all the racket and hurried through it.

Moving like this was going to make it harder for Wesker to find him--that was Wesker’s own fault for taking his damn sweet time. Leon’s only priority right now was to escape and survive, and that was what he was gonna do.

He shoved through a pair of double doors into a cafeteria. Cold food rotted on forgotten platters, collecting flies. The place had clearly been abandoned in a hurry. He picked his way over to the kitchen door, skirting overturned tables and chairs. Utensils rattled merrily within the flatware holder as he passed it.

The kitchen had a back exit that led out into another hallway. He paused there, straining his ears to gauge what direction the party crasher was coming from. There hadn’t been any more big crashes, and the rumbling in the floor was dying off now. Other than the drone of the fluorescent bulbs, the only sound that came to his ears was the faint noise of someone retching in a nearby room. It wasn’t what he’d been expecting to hear. He took one step towards it before thinking better of the idea. There weren’t many survivors down here, and it was hard to imagine any of them throwing up. The chances were too high that he was hearing an infected person. He turned away from the noise, heading down the hall in the opposite direction.

One hallway led to another, to another. He approached one intersection and stopped short at the sight of black mold crawling rapidly over the wall. When he about-faced and tried another way, he got through two turnings before coming to another corridor blackened with spreading mold. As he continued to weave his way through the section, it soon became clear that something was actively spreading the mold, leaving a long, growing tail of the stuff behind it. It was like they were playing that old computer game Snake, except Leon was the apple, and there was never any way to tell which direction the head of the Snake had gone.

Soon he had gotten himself thoroughly lost playing this bizarre dance of hide and seek and Snake. Having the place gradually fill with mold wasn’t helping him navigate, either. Nothing looked the same as it did the first time he passed through.

The next time he heard vomiting he ducked through the nearest door into a bathroom and hid inside one of the stalls. It was there that his radio chirped.

"Leon," Wesker said, voice flat with irritation, “where did you go.”

"I don't know where I am and something in here is real anxious to make my acquaintance," Leon hissed back, as quietly as he could manage. “Really pushy kind of guy. I don’t think I want to meet him.”

When Wesker spoke again his tone was much more patient.

“Which direction did you take?”

“Right, I think.”

“Either try to find a camera or head towards a landmark,” Wesker instructed.

“A camera--are you still in the control room?” Leon asked him. He’d figured Wesker would be in the residential area by now.

“Yes. I could not find a way over to you without reopening the sections I blocked off. As it stands I may need to knock down a few walls myself.”

“Can you see the BOW?”

“I can see where it’s _been_ ,” Wesker said. “He has a nasty habit of blocking off cameras wherever he goes.”

“...what, on purpose?”

“I would not put it past him. He does not seem to like being watched. This one is smart, Leon. For your own safety, assume you are up against a human level intelligence.”

“Christ. I hate the smart ones.”

“And whatever you do, don’t try to talk to it. You will make it mad.”

Weirdly specific, but okay. Maybe the BOW hated puns as much as Wesker did. He eased the stall door open and poked his head out of the bathroom. The Snake had passed him by again, leaving the hall outside a lot grosser than it had been. Dimmer, too. Enough of the gunk had reached the ceiling to partially cover the lights.

“Gonna request radio silence,” Leon said. “I think it’s close. Guy vomits like a sorority girl at her first frat party.”

“Roger that.”

Leon clipped the radio back to its pocket and did his best to tiptoe down the hall without getting more slime over his bare feet. Probably a lost cause at this point, considering what he’d walked through to get to this section. Still, this mold was ‘fresher’, and he didn’t want to disturb it more than he had to. He opened one of the other doors along the hall, hoping for a quick escape.

The room inside had some lumpy mounds that might have been break room furniture at one point--the mold growing inches thick over everything made it hard to tell. About twenty, maybe even thirty skeletal gray hands stuck up from the mounds. They waved gently to and fro like seaweed underwater. Leon quietly closed the door.

“Hands are a new one,” he muttered.

Once he had seen that room, he couldn’t help noticing all the buds--for lack of a better word--of hands forming in the thicker clumps of mold, their fully defined knuckles and fingers folded into the walls. It was extremely unsettling, and he picked up the pace, strongly desiring to get out of here before they started moving.

The next T intersection gave him the choice between still more mold or a hallway with clean tile, and he picked the obvious choice. He would love to say the hall looked familiar, but everything in this place was the same hospital white with some forest green accents. There was a camera in the far corner. Relieved, he pattered over to it and started waving.

It was a little guilty, that feeling of relief. He still hadn’t found the green lab, hadn’t stopped Hunk or destroyed the rest of the P-30 samples. As soon as Wesker found him, they would be out of here, and he wasn’t likely to get another chance to slip away on his personal mission. Maybe, if he convinced Wesker to trigger the self destruct before they left...

A door clicked closed behind him, the mundane noise amplified by the quiet of the hallway. Leon twisted to look over his shoulder, immediately on guard. Most BOWs weren’t so gentle with doors, but Wesker couldn’t have gotten here yet. His immediate thought was either Hunk or Ada. What he saw was neither.

There was a man standing in front of the door. A painfully thin, tall man, dressed in the same Umbrella couture as Leon, though his hospital gown had seen a lot more wear and grime. His bare feet and most of his shins were splattered black from trudging through mold. The stranger’s eyes fixed on him immediately, his face completely blank of expression as he drank in Leon’s appearance. His head tilted to one side, birdlike.

When those pale eyes met Leon’s, something jostled loose in the back of his mind. A memory, trying to come back. He had seen this man before, but where? When?

“Why do you look so familiar to me?” Leon murmured to himself, too quiet to be heard by the man slowly moving toward him. He looked the gowned figure up and down, uncertain, off balance.

The stranger didn’t look infected. No blood, no rot. The skin was whole, if an unhealthy pale color. His eyes were sharp and clear, his movements smooth. Nothing at first glance would make him stand out from any other hospital patient. Yet Leon’s hackles were rising. Something in the way this man moved wasn’t right. Shouldn’t he be happy to see another living soul? Relieved? Why wasn’t he saying anything?

Perhaps he was wondering the same about Leon.

“Hey? Hello? Do I know you?” Leon called out.

The stranger’s blank mask crumpled into confusion, his lips briefly pulling back in a snarl. With that kind of reaction, you’d think Leon had just called his mother a whore. In Chinese.

The radio clipped to his pocket crackled to life.

_“Leon, that is not a human!”_ Wesker’s voice barked.

Shit.

He was looking at the head of the Snake. The stranger--scratch that, _BOW_ \--pitched forward to his knees, one hand pressed to his rib cage as he heaved up a thick batch of black slime. Leon didn’t need any further encouragement to wheel around and hustle back down the hall as quickly as he could move. He banked a left at the T intersection, mold squishing under his bare feet as he trampled through it.

“I hope you already figured out where I am, because I’m not sticking around!” Leon said into his radio.

The BOW hissed behind him. He picked up the pace, glancing briefly over his shoulder to double check it hadn’t reached the intersection yet.

_“Stop talking where it can hear you,”_ Wesker replied.

The wall in front of him exploded, shards of plaster and concrete nicking his arms and cheeks. Leon reflexively brought his arms up to shield his face from the worst of it. Through the gaps of his fingers he saw the massive gray fist sticking out from the new hole in the wall, and cold dread curdled in his stomach. Seven feet of gray-skinned milky-eyed tyrant stepped out into the hallway, plaster dust settling in the folds of its dark trench coat. Its emotionless face turned towards him.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Leon hissed as he backed away.

On a split second decision, he lurched back the way he’d come. If he had to choose between a tyrant and the unknown mold-vomiting waif, he was going to pick the one that couldn’t pop a man’s skull in one hand. He dashed at a limping jog towards the only leg of this hallway that didn’t have a monster in it, praying that he was fast enough to reach it before the first BOW flanked him.

He was not. As he moved across the intersection, a hand with long, thin fingers and a grip like stone seized him by the forearm and squeezed so hard his bones felt ready to pop. It twisted, forcing him to bend off course just to keep his arm in its socket. Leon gasped out in pain, squinting through watering eyes up into the pale gray gaze of the aforementioned mold-vomiting waif. He might have miscalculated. With a grip like that, maybe the guy could crush a skull in one hand.

The BOW hauled him forward, completely oblivious to how badly it was treating Leon’s poor arm. Leon dug his heels in and tried to pull free, but it was like playing tug-of-war with a freight train. All he ended up doing was skidding forward on his bare heels. The BOW looked briefly over its shoulder, not at him but past him. It marched forward briskly, scanning the hall as it went, tugging Leon after it like a bag of groceries. Mold slithered past them, overgrowing the walls at a dizzying rate, and the hall began to dim.

Behind them, the familiar stomping of the Tyrant’s heavy boots approached. That was bad. That was very bad. Leon wasn’t in any condition to weather a punch from 400 pounds of raw viral-enhanced muscle right now, and the stranger wasn’t letting him go either. It dragged him at a steady, unflinching gait towards the two bulbous, bubbling columns of mold that had grown out of its vomit pile. Slits opened in the masses, from which dozens of gray hands began to emerge.

And that was a hard nope. Leon yanked a grenade off his belt, chose his target, and threw. It hit the rightmost pillar and exploded, showering the mass in fire. The BOW wheeled back, a strangled, terrified screech coming from its throat. Leon took advantage of its distraction to pull free and hobble away, and only narrowly avoided running face-first into the Tyrant stomping up behind them. Luck was with him--its unwavering attention seemed to be fixed on the other BOW, and by the time it realized Leon was passing by, he was out of range.

When he rounded the corner, he ran straight into a second firm chest. His hand jumped, and he would have shoved a grenade right into the newcomer’s face if it hadn’t registered that this particular tyrant had blond hair. Leon had never been so happy to see Wesker in his life.

Wesker jerked his chin, wordlessly signaling for Leon to follow. They quickly put some distance between themselves and what Leon was starting to think of as the ‘hell intersection’, passing through the nearest door out of that hallway and into the quieter interior of the facility laundry room. Originally, the room had only had one door. Now there was an additional hole in the wall, and the spreading trail of black bisecting the room made it pretty clear who was responsible for the remodeling.

“Come,” Wesker ordered quietly, heading straight for the broken wall. “We’re not too far from the elevator. You seem to have wandered in a lot of circles.”

Too tired to bristle at being ordered about like a dog, Leon fell into step behind him.

“Jesus, there’s no getting away from this stuff,” Leon grumbled as they ducked through the dripping archway. “You want to tell me anything about Mr. Clean’s arch-nemesis back there?”

“I’d say C-L’s behavior is fairly self-evident. He is an experimental fungal-based BOW, able to produce and control macrocolonies of mold. He is also quite uncontrollable and violently psychotic.”

“Par for the course.” Leon glanced over his shoulder to make sure they weren’t being followed, and nearly ran into a stalactite of mold while he wasn’t paying attention. “Do you think he’s following us?”

“Most likely. With any luck the tyrant will slow him down a little.” Wesker turned to study him, his eyes bright as hot coals in the dim. “Curious that he didn’t kill you on sight.”

The observation disturbed him. Reflecting on the encounter, the BOW hadn’t seemed all that aggressive. A licker or hunter would have rushed straight at him. Even Mr. X went on the attack more quickly. The way C-L had hung back, those blank eyes staring, assessing, it was strange.

“You could sound a little happier about that,” Leon huffed, brushing off his unease.

“I’m very happy you’re alive,” Wesker replied, his tone mocking. Somehow, Leon believed him anyway. “How are you feeling?”

“Hanging in there,” Leon replied.

Wesker looked back over his shoulder, his eyes openly dubious as they scanned over Leon’s hunched posture.

“You just met C-L five minutes ago,” he said, “and I’ve yet to hear a single comment about him ‘being too handsy’ or ‘wanting to give you a hand,” or any other similar grade school pun which you consider humor.”

“Shit. You’re right. I’ve missed so many opportunities.”

“That was not an invitation.”

“No? You sure sound like you miss my sparkling wit.”

“It’s a worrisome change in behavior, that’s all. Your terrible action hero persona is obviously a coping mechanism, and if--”

Wesker looked around the next corner and stopped short.

“Excuse me, my what?” Leon demanded, incensed. He did not have a ‘persona’ modeled after some Hollywood wannabe, he hunted zombies and monsters for a living. He was a legitimate action hero, thank you very much (and if he liked to watch a lot of James Bond movies in his off time, well, who didn’t like James Bond?).

He received no reply as Wesker continued to stare at whatever he saw around the corner, his expression teetering between fascination and wariness. Leon sidled up next to him to see what he was looking at. A forest of hands wavered gently in the middle of the hall, their arms rooted in the ceiling. The lights above them were all but blotted out.

“He can control the mold from a minimum distance of 6 meters away,” Wesker said. “They never confirmed just how far a range his control has.”

“Let’s... _not_....go through the hand hallway,” Leon suggested.

“Agreed.”

A thought struck him suddenly, one of those little lightning bolts of humor that only hit in a particular circumstance and will never seem funny to anyone outside that moment. The struggle to not pop his stitches laughing at it was so intense he had to collapse against the nearest wall with one palm shoved over his mouth and take deep breaths through his nose. Wesker, understandably, looked at him like he’d just lost his mind.

“I-I just realized,” Leon managed between choked little half-cackles, “His right hand _does_ come off!”

This proclamation did not change Wesker’s expression one bit. It only made it harder not to laugh.

“I hope you haven’t finally cracked under the pressure,” Wesker said. “It would be terribly disappointing after all this trouble.”

“Trying not to laugh,” Leon gasped. “Laughing hurts. If you’d been in Spain, you’d understand.”

Sighing, Wesker reached forward to grab Leon by the shoulder.

“Come on, we don’t have all--”

The facility shuddered around them, a distant bang suggesting something had just crashed through another wall. That sobered Leon right up.

“Quickly. We’ll cut through the cafeteria,” Wesker ordered.

Unlike most other places, the cafeteria still looked just the same as it had the first time he had passed through. It was a great relief to finally be back on familiar ground. Even the rumbling was the same.

They burst out of the cafeteria, into the hallway outside the bunk rooms. The bedroom windows had all been blotted over with black grime, making it impossible to see inside them anymore. Being back here reminded Leon with an unpleasant jolt that they were missing someone.

“What about Mike?” he asked.

“We don’t have time,” came the terse reply. “We go for the elevator. If he’s there, he’s there. If he’s not, he will just have to look after himself.

“But--” Leon cut himself off. Of course Wesker wouldn’t be the ‘no man left behind’ type. It was a goddamn miracle he had even come back to get Leon. Mike was just another meat shield to him. Leon may not have known Mike very well, but he hated the idea of abandoning someone who had been, actually, kind of a decent guy considering his profession.

There was nothing he could do about it. He wouldn’t be any good to Mike even if he ignored Wesker and tried to find the man. All he was good for right now was slowing people down. Mike would have better luck surviving on his own, assuming he was even still alive. Leon hadn’t seen any trace of him during his confused circling, and that was a bad sign.

“Don’t tell me you’ve gotten attached already,” Wesker chided. “You don’t know a single thing about him.”

Leon sighed, and it sounded nearly as bone-deep weary as he felt.

“I’m too tired to explain to you why someone shouldn’t be left for dead just on the merit of being a _person_.”

“And what did I tell you about playing hero?” Wesker returned, his voice suddenly sharp. “Not. Today. When you are in good health you can exercise your ridiculous compassion as much as you like. Right now, you follow _my_ playbook so you can actually get out of this alive.”

Woo, snappy. Wesker must have been more on edge than he was pretending to be. And perhaps he had good reason to be. The shaking floor was constant now. It reminded him of a little rickety bridge near where he grew up, and how you could feel the boards rumble in the spring when the river underneath ran fast and white, swollen with snow melt.

Underneath.

The crawlspace.

“It’s under us!”

“I know.” Wesker spared a glare at the floor, his jaw tight. He grabbed Leon around the bicep and pulled him forward, slightly gentler than C-L had earlier, but not by much. “Move. If you can’t go any faster I will carry you.”

It was his bad arm, too. Leon did not have time to protest the treatment--Wesker had only pulled him a few steps forward before a huge black mass ripped its way up through the floor ahead in a shower of concrete. At first glance it looked like a big amorphous pile of tentacles, but on closer inspection the ‘tentacles’ were hundreds of grasping, clawing hands, sinking their nails into every nearby surface to help haul the central mass out of its hole.

For a second Leon forgot where he was. His mind was catapulted back 5 years to the dark and rainy streets of Raccoon, where the grasping hands of the dead reached for him through every window and doorway.

A tug on his shoulder brought him back to the present.

“We have to get through,” Wesker was shouting. “The grenades, Leon! Burn it!”

Leon pulled a grenade off his belt and flung it at the mass. It struck true, exploding in a small fireball that incinerated a good third of the hands. Something screamed, even though hands shouldn’t have had voice boxes. He threw a second, and then a third, making sure the whole thing ignited.

He was winding up to toss a fourth grenade and a sudden pull on his arm made him stumble, Wesker forcing him back several feet with a speed that made his stitches pinch. They stopped with their backs all but pressed to the bedroom windows. The floor where they had been standing cracked open as he watched, still more hands bursting out through the concrete.

“Just how many are there?” Leon asked.

“A lot.” Wesker surveyed the situation grimly. “Maybe if we got up on the ceiling--”

Wesker cut off on an odd little huff of breath, like someone had just clapped the air out of his lungs. When Leon looked over, Wesker had gone stock still, his back stiff, his eyes wide and unfocused. He didn’t see what was wrong at first, not until the claw tips of gray fingers pushed all the way through Wesker’s core, poking out through the bottom of his rib cage. Behind him, he could see an inhumanly long gray arm sticking out through the window. Between the roaring of fire and the thrashing of the mold, he hadn’t even heard the glass break. Wesker’s fingers tightened spasmodically around Leon’s arm as the rest of the hand forced its way through his chest.

Luis had made the same sounds, the same expression, when Saddler stabbed him from behind. He half-expected Wesker to follow the same motions, to be pulled upward off his feet as Luis had. Leon watched in horrified fascination as the mold fingers curled lightly and then pulled to the right, scooping out about half of Wesker’s abdomen with it. The grip on Leon’s arm went slack and slid away.

Wesker looked faintly surprised as he toppled sideways, his broken body collapsing like a sack of flour. He hit the ground wetly and twitched, his hand pressing to the floor like the still thought he could push himself back up after that. Blood pooled under him, spreading out far enough to touch his face, wet his hair. The tension in his arm went slack, elbow drooping.

Leon had seen a lot of people die in front of him, many of them friends, some even more than that. He had never imagined Wesker would join that number, that he even could. Wesker was supposed to be invincible. Untouchable. An immortal monster that Leon had allowed himself to accommodate, even to like, because there was no getting rid of him. But he fell just like all the rest. His red eyes got the same glassy, unfocused look, and his body went limp, and his blood poured out thick and red. Just like everyone else.

Leon was stunned. There was no room for any other emotions, the shock filled up every interior cranny of him. To think it had been just one hand that did it, one hand just like the dozens of others pouring out through the window, from the floor. Nothing made it stand out but Wesker’s blood dripping from its fingers. Through the haze of disbelief, he pulled himself together with that legendary level-headedness. Wesker was either gone for good or about to come back as something mindless and angry. This hall was a death trap and he needed to leave now. There was no point fighting his way down to the elevator now, not without Wesker.

He tossed all but two of his incendiary grenades to cover his retreat. This section was much too dangerous. He needed to go back the way Mike had brought him, all the way across the outbreak and back into the other side of the facility if he could manage it.

At the door, he cast one final, lingering glance over his shoulder. Wesker’s body was no longer visible, blocked from view by hands and mold, but a different person was. A tall, willowy figure in blood-stained white stood like a ghost amid the writhing hands. The BOW was watching him, face twisted in something like betrayal.

Leon escaped through the door, and left Wesker behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D
> 
> What’s that? Did I steal the tyrant impalement from RE 2 remake? It’s a good impalement okay no one can blame me


	15. In Which Leon Throws Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leon gets resourceful, and Hunk is rewarded for holding on to his radio.

When the shock wore off, Leon’s training took over. This was a routine he was used to, to keep focused, to keep going no matter what happened or who fell. It never got any less painful, but he was used to it. Mentally he stepped back, assessed the situation, and cataloged his resources. He had two incendiary grenades, a borrowed radio, a gas mask, and a lab ID card of administrator clearance. No one was around to back him up. He had just lost Wesker--how permanently, only time could tell, but the outlook wasn’t great. Even a tyrant could only take so much damage, and Wesker had just had a good cubic foot of flesh ripped out of him. Even he couldn’t brush off losing half his vital organs.

There was an ugly knot of feelings in Leon that had been broiling in his gut from the moment he had watched Wesker’s eyes turn glassy. He had shoved them all away into a little compartment in his mind and chosen to ignore them, for now. Later, when he was out, when he was safe, he could sit down with a bottle of whiskey and stew over the fact that he had somehow outlived even the mighty Albert Wesker, and he would never again have lazy hotel meetings or tense on-the-clock clashes with him to look forward to. Maybe he could even work himself into a nice guilt session over the fact Wesker’s demise had caused him anything other than relief or happiness. Right now, he still had to survive this mess.

He was back in section 20, resting on the floor a safe distance from any nearby mold pillars while he waited for the throbbing in his stomach to ease. There had been no signs of pursuit from C-L, yet. He wasn’t far from the delivery entrance. It might be open by now, but that wasn’t his goal. Running out into Wesker’s men without Wesker sounded like a terrible idea. He’d find his way back through the infested area, and take the secret passage Ada had showed him. If he was lucky, he might even run into her on the way.

When he had rested enough to be able to walk upright for a little longer, Leon went on his way. The first hurdle was just how goddamn dark it was in this area, the dark mold devouring light as readily as it digested the corpses caught within it. No one had thought to give him a flashlight, so he kept to the better lit paths, avoiding the darkest hallways as much as he could. He was forced at one point to pick his way through a forest of frozen hands, the gray limbs frozen into position like topiary shrubs. Before entering he had poked the meat of one slimy palm, just to make sure contact wouldn’t wake the things up. His finger had sunk in to the base of his nail, flesh giving way like soil, to no response. Wesker had mentioned something about C-L having a range. Maybe this hell-mold just wasn’t active unless he was nearby.

An unexpected beeping broke the smothered quiet of the overgrown hallways. It came from his radio. Leon unclipped the device and looked at it, caught between disbelief and hope--until he heard the voice which issued from it.

“Nighthawk to Alpha team, do you copy?” The male voice sounded almost too nonchalant, with a bland midwestern American accent. Not Wesker. An Umbrella agent.

“This is Hunk from Alpha team. I copy.”

Leon grit his teeth and shrank closer to the nearest wall. Just what he needed, more Umbrella people.

“Your backup’s here. Delta team is in position at--”

“Nighthawk, our comms are compromised. There is one escaped specimen and at least one intruder carrying our radios.”

The smart thing to do would be not to engage, but Leon never could resist a good opportunity to heckle. Especially when he was in a bad mood.

“Hey, I’m not a specimen, I’m a person,” he said into the radio.

There was a pause.

“That’s not C-L001, is it?” asked Nighthawk.

“No. That is LK24. Uninfected, recovering from surgery, minimal threat.”

“Ah....alright. We’ve got revised mission parameters. C-L001 is to be recaptured and transferred. All other active specimens can be disposed of.”

“Bad luck, Kennedy,” Hunk said.

“I am giving you guys such a bad yelp review after this,” Leon replied.

“If you’ve got any complaints, make sure to note them on our customer satisfaction survey,” Nighthawk said.

“Don’t encourage him,” Hunk said. It was unclear whether he was talking to Nighthawk or Leon.

The radios went silent after that. Minimal threat, huh? Leon would show them minimal threat.

Even though Hunk had prevented his compatriot from revealing too much information, Leon worked out pretty quickly that the new Umbrella team had come in through the delivery entrance, and they were much too close to him for comfort. They hadn’t spotted him yet. It was dark, he was barefoot, and the mold muffled any additional noise he made as he slipped past the team, dodging the beams of their flashlights. But he wasn’t out of the woods yet. He could hear them shuffling around behind him as he hurried through a hall that was much dimmer than he’d like.

Soon he butted up against a roadblock. This was one of the spots where the mold had grown in so thick it covered the hallway. Before, Wesker’s men had lead them around somewhere, through a hole in one of the walls. Leon couldn’t remember the exact route. On top of that, the Umbrella team was closing in. He needed to find somewhere to hide, quick.

A thin red light on the wall caught his eye. It belonged to the status indicator of a card reader, set beside a door so swamped in mold he hadn’t noticed it before now. Leon dug the forgotten ID card out of his pocket and swiped it through the reader. The indicator turned green, and with a soft electric whir, a gap in the wall about 1 1/2 feet wide appeared. It stuck there, unable to open further. The room beyond was so dark that the gap blended perfectly with the black mold.

Faced with the choice between the dark unknown or a team of armed soldiers looking to kill him, Leon ducked inside the room. His foot immediately landed on a bony cylindrical object. He hoped off it and froze, waiting for some kind of retaliation. When nothing happened, he gently squatted down and felt along the floor.

His searching fingers found a solid shape with the spongy texture of mold, a tapering cylinder that opened up into a larger square with several smaller cylinders coming off it. An arm. A hand. And no body attached to it, so it had to be one of C-L’s. It hadn’t reacted at all, even after being stepped on.

“Anything?” A voice from the hall. Leon looked up at the door. He could see the hall outside now, lit by the searching beams of several flashlights.

“It’s another dead end.”

“Leave it. He couldn’t have gone through here.”

Leon looked back down at the arm under his hands. Thinking quickly, he seized it by its root and quietly pried it out of the mold. It didn’t give as easily as he was expecting, but a few good twists and tugs did the job. The team outside was turning around, their flashlight beams vanishing one by one. Leon padded over to the doorway, pulled his arm back, and threw the hand at the back of the nearest soldier’s head. It connected, provoking a startled shout.

“Contact!” the man yelped.

Leon ducked back safely out of view half a second before a stream of fire flooded the hall. The heat of it washed through the open doorway, brushing his left arm and jostling his hair, followed by the eerily scream-like sound of mold shriveling. Two other flamethrowers joined in, he could hear the hiss-fwoomph of them engaging, before all the light and noise extinguished.

“No movement,” someone said.

“I swear I felt something grab at me.”

“I think you got it, Whisper.”

“I really fucking hate this place.”

“Enough. Keep moving.”

The men shuffled away. Leon waited until he couldn’t hear them anymore before poking his head out of hiding. The panicked flame-throwing had burned away the knot of mold blocking the corridor, clearing the path for him. Leon grinned to himself. Now that was what he called giving someone a hand. Victorious, he walked through the newly opened path.

His radio beeped.

“Double back,” Hunk’s gruff voice commanded. “He was hiding near that dead end--” his voice cut off, drowned out by gunshots on his end.

Alarmed, Leon looked around. He didn’t see Hunk anywhere. How had the bastard known?

There was no time to worry about that now, he realized when he heard the angry shouts behind him. He had some running to do.

* * *

Several rooms away, a massive form in a black trench coat halted its purposeful march to stare blankly down the hallway. The movement was so abrupt, one might imagine it had just had its attention caught by a noise, or a sudden thought. Its face, as mobile and expressive as a corpse’s, did not show any evidence of thought going on behind its milky gray eyes. It turned a sharp 90 degrees to face the wall.

The tyrant raised a fist and rammed it through the wall with the force of a small bomb, blasting big chunks of plaster and steel reinforcement out of its way. It bent over and ducked through the new opening, almost ginger in its movements, as if it were afraid of knocking off a hat it wasn’t wearing.

Once on the other side of the wall, it turned to the right and stomped off at a brisk power walk, the stamp of its boots thundering down the corridor.

* * *

Bullets ricocheted off the wall opposite him. Leon squeezed a little tighter back between two mold mounds, his jaw tense. He hated getting close to these things, but there was nowhere else to take cover. These bastards were persistent, and he was in no condition to outrun them. So far he’d managed to survive by taking advantage of shadows and his opponents’ squeamishness around the mold. They hadn’t figured out yet that the stuff around here wasn’t moving. He’d thrown a few more stray hands at them, just to create extra chaos.

He had no idea where he was at this point. Maybe still in section 20, maybe in 19 or 18. All the markings were covered up and it was dark as hell.

When the gunfire stopped and the sounds of movement pulled back a little, he ducked out from his cover and limped over to a new hiding spot. On the way he caught his shin on something hard and metal, leading him to limp the rest of the way on one leg. He all but collapsed behind the object, rubbing the leg furiously while he bit back curses.

“I heard something. Over there!”

Leon glared at the offending object. It was an open specimen tank, laying forlornly on its side. It had an odd hinged design that allowed the front to swing open. The sight of its open latch rattled through him like a penny in a maraca. This very tank, this very spot, he remembered--he’d been sitting in a wheelchair, the leather strap digging into his waist. They were bringing him to the surgery room. Everything had felt fuzzy and slow from the drugs they gave him. Another group of men had been stalled in the hallway, arguing heatedly around a forklift. On that forklift had rested a specimen tank, C-L standing listlessly inside it, looking deceptively human.

No one had been looking at him. It had been so simple to reach out, to grasp the lock in one hand and pull it open. It hadn’t even needed a key. The guards went on arguing, none the wiser. C-L had turned his stare on Leon, had kept watching him even when they wheeled Leon away, his face and his hands pressed to the glass. Wesker’s observation that C-L hadn’t killed him on sight took on new and startling implications. Did C-L recognize Leon? Did he remember?

A beam of light swung over the tank. Leon pulled his feet in and ducked down even further.

“Christ--do you see that?”

“Yeah. I see it.”

Leon looked up. No one had noticed him yet; their flashlights were focused down the hall, illuminating a disturbing tableau of frozen hands and limp corpses. These bodies were much fresher than any others he’d seen. On one of the vests the HCF logo gleamed, stark white on black. Wesker’s men.

Wesker liked to tease Hunk about always losing his teams, but Leon had to wonder how many people Wesker had lost. Not that Wesker seemed to care. He hadn’t cared about anyone, in fact, except...

“Infiltration team. Looks like they got more than they bargained for.”

“I’d like to know how they found us.”

“Cut the chatter. Keep looking. He can’t have gone far.”

A beam swept over the floor half a foot from him, briefly highlighting a small white object. Leon snatched it up as soon as the beam moved away, just in case it was useful--a survival instinct he’d honed through many outbreak situations. The object was an earpiece, connected to a little radio. Wesker’s radio. There was also a gas mask lying a short ways away, and....was that a gun?

He did remember the warning about recoil messing up his healing stitches. He also knew it wouldn’t matter if he got shot in the head. So he dove for it, scooped the gun up in one hand, and ducked between a couple corpses on his way towards a new spot of cover. He got behind another pillar, but not fast enough.

“There he--!”

A wall exploded nearby. Leon couldn’t see it, but he could recognize the sound pretty well by now. He also recognized the sound of stomping boots that followed. His eyes squeezed shut and he sagged, a little, in his hiding spot.

His feelings were echoed by the quiet “Oh fuck” that issued from one of the Umbrella men.

“Hold fire. It might be--”

A fist hit flesh with a bone-cracking crunch, and whoever had been hit gave a little cry before flopping to the ground.

“Hostile BOW! Open fire!”

The order wasn’t needed--Leon had heard gunshots the second after the punch connected. Everyone sounded distracted. Maybe if he started creeping away now, he could be out of here before the tyrant finished knocking heads in and noticed his presence.

“Eat this you---AAAHH!”

“Fall back! Fall back!”

Suddenly the footsteps were stomping towards him, and he was nowhere near safety yet. He risked a glance over his shoulder. The tyrant was making a beeline for him, its shoulders hunched slightly forward as its arms swung. Tyrants never did seem to like running, but its long legs still ate up the space between them at a frightening rate. He pointed his new gun at its face. Small caliber bullets wouldn’t do much to impress a tyrant, but maybe if he got it in the eye he could stun it for a fraction of a second.

Before he could fire, the tyrant knocked his hand aside and clamped one meaty fist around Leon’s shoulder. There it stopped. Leon had an up close and personal view of the odd ripple pattern of wrinkles in its face, as well as a weird little metal tube sticking out from its temple that he had never noticed before. The tyrant just...stood there, staring him down with one hand on his shoulder, looking to to all the world like it was about to dispense some stern, fatherly advice.

“Hey buddy, you want to stop invading my personal space?” Leon asked it. He tugged at the hand on his shoulder.

All at once it moved, one arm sweeping at the backs of Leon’s knees while the other looped around his back, and before he knew it he was being carried off like a bride.

“Wha--hey! Hey! Put me down!”

The tyrant walked on, placidly ignoring the slaps of Leon’s hands against its shoulder and face. Leon subsided with a huff, but only because the awkward movements were straining his abdomen. What was with all the bioweapons wanting to drag him around, today? He still had the gun, he could shoot it in the face like he originally planned. It might drop him though, and the bastard was so tall he’d have a long way to drop.

“What the hell...?” said a voice behind them.

To round off this wonderful shitshow, the Umbrella team had just come back.

“Just shoot them!”

The tyrant angled itself so the flood of bullets all connected with its back, shielding Leon. He could hear the shots impacting the BOW’s solid frame, not a single one provoking so much as a shiver in response. The tyrant marched on, brushing the hits off as if they were pebbles.

“Bullets aren’t working!” someone yelled.

“What were you expecting?” Leon called over the BOW’s shoulder. “It’s a tyrant!”

He had never seen a bullet go all the way through a tyrant. Even the highest caliber weapons could do nothing but blast off surface layers of skin. Leon had once fired five shotgun shells point blank into Mr. X’s face, and all it had done was bloody the BOW’s temples and knock his hat off.

It had been a mistake. Mr. X seemed to like that hat.

“Someone get in there with a flamethrower!”

The tyrant veered off course, heading towards a grime-covered tank bolted to a nearby wall. Leon couldn’t even tell what it used to be--liquid nitrogen, maybe, or oxygen. The tyrant gave it one harsh jab with its boot heel to break the bolts screwing it to the wall, and then kicked it at the clump of Umbrella agents. The impact scattered them like bowling pins, crushing the two it hit head on and knocking the others aside.

“Nice shot,” Leon admitted. “Keep that up and you’ll make the soccer team for sure.”

Without comment, the tyrant turned around and resumed walking. Leon could get used to this. Being carried around by an invincible monster wasn’t as nice on his stomach as lying down in a stationary bed, but at least it kept him off his feet and away from unfriendly bullets. The Umbrella team did not follow them.

The whole experience was too surreal. He didn’t know how to process being saved by a creature he had spent so much time fighting, cursing, and running from in the past. Usually when Leon met a tyrant, he knew he would have no peace until he found a rocket launcher. It was doubly weird that it had decided to side with him over the Umbrella goons. He must have won it over with his charm and good looks back when they ran into each other earlier. Yeah, right.

They came to a relatively clean room done in white and green, with two rows of big specimen tanks lining the walls. Each tank held a tyrant, all with identical faces, and a quick glance down confirmed they were all smooth as ken dolls. The only feature that distinguished them from the one holding him was their nudity. Hadn’t Wesker said they were all clones of some executive? He wondered if the original was also built like a brick shithouse, or if that was the virus’s doing.

One tank on the end stood open and empty, which solved the mystery of where his dashing savior had come from. It still left him with a lot of questions. How had it gotten out, why was it helping him, and most importantly, where had it gotten the trench coat? The tyrant did not stop to let him sight-see more. It opened the door to the next room and carefully bent to duck under the doorframe.

At last, the tyrant stopped moving. If Leon had to bet money, he’d guess they had just come to the central control room. It had all the requisite monitors, buttons, keyboards and flashing lights a control room ought to have. In the center, surrounded by a 3-walled tower of screens, a lone office chair stood in the middle of a sluggishly expanding pool of blood. Wesker’s corpse had been draped over the chair--keyword, _draped_. With only a few inches of flesh and a little bone to attach the torso to the hips, the slightest shift in any direction might have sent it tumbling to the floor.

One red eye peeled open and fixed on him.

“Wesker!” Leon yelped, more surprised than he probably ought to be.

Wesker raised one hand and curled two fingers. In response the tyrant set Leon back on his feet and released him. It all clicked, then.

“You sent a _tyrant_ after me?” Leon demanded.

Wesker lowered his hand, looking all too pleased for a man with his spleen hanging out.

“I could hardly...” he paused to spit up some blood, “...come fetch you myself.”

A true and fair point, which Leon refused to acknowledge.

“Well, no, but still. A tyrant!”

“Don’t fret...” Wesker rasped. “I have complete control.”

He’d heard that one before.

Wesker’s eyes closed again. This...wasn’t the time to stand around and argue. Leon went to his side and dropped to one knee for a closer look, ignoring the tepid blood that soaked the bottom edge of his lab coat.

More than anything, Wesker looked tired. The permanent furrow between his brows had deepened to a canyon, and weariness sunk into the lines of his face so deeply that he almost looked his age. His eyes had drifted back open when Leon approached, and he watched Leon watching him, his breathing slow and shallow. The oozing red mess that used to be his stomach pulsed a little in time with that breathing. It was eerie as fuck.

“We need to treat this,” Leon said, “but....god, I don’t even know where to start.”

Wesker unfurled one hand, pointing to a high shelf behind Leon. He had a strange metal glove on his hands, bare steel framework supporting a nest of visible wiring and circuitry. Leon took the hand and pulled it in for a closer look.

“What is....?”

Wesker slapped him away without force and pointed more aggressively. Leon went to the indicated shelf and found a first aid kit, which he fetched. The kit was pretty depleted; one first aid spray, a green-blue herb mixture, and a handful of bandaids were all that remained.

First aid spray contained a special Umbrella-patented mixture of antibiotics and what was essentially body-safe biodegradable superglue. It was meant to help hold bits of you together and sterilize wounds at the same time, until you could get professional treatment. It wouldn’t be enough for a job this big, but it was a start. He shook up the can and sprayed a liberal coating over all of Wesker’s exposed insides. The raw red flesh turned a soft matte pink under the spray.

There wasn’t any need for the herb mixture--Wesker wasn’t poisoned, and the spray would stop the bleeding on its own. Leon held up the last item in the kit, one of the kneecap-sized bandaids, and looked at Wesker, who snorted.

“I could find some cloth to rip up?” Leon suggested.

Wesker shook his head minutely.

“Don’t bother. If you bandage it, there is a risk I’ll heal over the cloth. This will be enough.”

Leon didn’t believe that for a second. He could _see Wesker’s spine_. There were ribs, too, the lowest ones, sticking down and out at weird angles. He took a deep breath and made himself stop looking at it.

“What are the chances you’re going to mutate?”

“It will heal,” Wesker said, his words a low growl, threatening in their finality. ‘It will heal or else’ was strongly implied. “It’s not G, Leon.”

“What?”

“My virus. It isn’t like G.”

“No, yeah, I know. I’ve seen a lot of things almost die and then come back with more limbs and teeth.”

“Mutation does happen,” Wesker allowed. “But not to me. I have taken precautions. To answer your earlier question...”

Wesker held his hands out and crooked some of his fingers. Heavy stomping approached them. When Leon twisted around, the tyrant was bowing. It straightened, shifted its weight, and settled back into an idle standing position, its blank eyes staring past every object in front of it.

“ _That’s_ how you control those?” Leon asked, staring at the weird metal gauntlets. “It looks like a shoddy cyberpunk DIY nintendo power glove.”

“The tyrant is little more than a biological robot without any will of its own. He does not have enough of a mind left to do anything but obediently follow orders. They can also be programmed to follow simple directives. Taking direct control is better for more delicate operations.”

“You must be feeling better. You’re getting wordy.”

Wesker caught Leon’s eyes, making it clear in one glance that he had caught the subtle probing for what it was, and Leon was not as sneaky as he thought he was.

“The bleeding has stopped. With the wound sealed, my internals are finally re-pressurizing.” He frowned. “Talking is one thing. I won’t be able to move until...”

“Until your spine stops showing?”

“At the least. I’ve locked all the doors, and I can activate other tyrants if we need the protection. For now, we will have to wait here. I...” he trailed off. His eyes flicked to Leon’s face, searching, hesitant. “I have not had to recover from damage this extensive since my initial rebirth. I do not know how long it will take.”

Translation: he had never been hurt this bad before. Leon nodded. He’d expected as much.

“...you sent a tyrant to get me,” he said again. It had only just occurred to him, how weak Wesker was right now, how vulnerable. He could barely keep his eyes open, and couldn’t even move from that chair. Yet he wanted Leon here with him.

“I thought you might be useful,” Wesker said. “The tyrant, masterpiece of bioweaponry though it is, would have difficulty giving first aid.”

The ‘I trust you’ went unsaid, but Leon heard it as loudly as if it had been shouted.

“Guess you can’t rely on monsters for everything,” Leon said. The image of the tyrant attempting to handle the first aid spray without crushing it in its enormous hands brought a little smile to his face.

Wesker’s eyes slipped to the side, his expression rueful. It looked odd on his face, both against his nature and completely natural at the same time.

“I suppose not,” he admitted. Leon barely heard him. He hadn’t noticed until just now, that there was a little something different about Wesker’s expressions all of a sudden. His guard was down, all the emotions he would normally hide behind a stoic facade sneaking out to play over his face. The effect was subtle, but striking in a man whose only usual settings were smug or angry. It brought him down to earth, made him seem real. Human. He shouldn’t have looked human, with the blood everywhere and the glowing eyes and the way he was casually leaning back with his stomach gaping open. Yet he did.

Something soft and warm surged up through Leon, a feeling that he did not dare name. But he could not resist acting on it. He cupped the back of Wesker’s neck in his palm and leaned in, capturing that slack mouth before he could talk himself out of it. Wesker made a soft, startled noise, but he yielded, opening his teeth for Leon to press further in. Blood coated his tongue and teeth, Leon could feel it sticking their lips together. It tasted coppery and awful. He didn’t care.

Wesker was too tired to do more than sleepily open his mouth in response. He’d let his eyes shut, and the fingers of one hand hooked lazily in Leon’s sleeve. Leon pulled away, Wesker’s blood tacky on his lips. Wesker blinked up at him, so pained and hazy-soft and utterly human, that for just that one moment Leon could admit to himself he was happy that Wesker had survived.

Wesker’s eyebrow twitched upward, eloquently requesting explanation. Leon groped for an excuse.

“You know, you look really fucked up right now?” Leon told him.

Wesker scoffed, his expression both amused and fond.

“For being such a boy scout, you have very dark turn-ons.”

The danger moment had passed. He could go on pretending this whole fucked up dance between them was motivated purely by lust and convenience.

“Like you’re any better?”

 _“I_ don’t pretend to be a boy scout.”

“No, just a cop.”

Wesker answered with a little half-smile that might have looked smug if his eyes weren’t so tired.

Leon released him and stood up. He found the nearest console capable of taking his weight and leaned his hip into it.

“I guess it’s a campout, then.”

“There’s nothing else to do but wait,” Wesker agreed. “And no, before you ask, I’m not up for any activities.”

“I didn’t think you would be.”

* * *

Ada’s Report 6

Hunk is becoming a real thorn in my side. Neither of us have been able to reach the objective yet, and if those rumbling sounds tell me anything, then the bioweapon is getting closer to us.

Curiously, I found one of Wesker’s men wandering around by himself. He seemed to be looking through the storage rooms for something. The poor dear ‘misplaced’ his radio, so I locked him in that section. I didn’t want him reporting my appearance to Wesker.

A pointless gesture, in retrospect. I’ve found Wesker’s body through one of the security cameras, stretched out on the floor near the specimen elevator. I can’t tell what happened to him, exactly, from this angle. The amount of blood on the ground tells its own tale. He’s either very badly injured, or...or he may be dead for good. The idea leaves me feeling strangely hollow.

I watched the feed long enough to see an old friend appear just at the bottom of the camera. The spreading mold blotted out the screen shortly after that. That explains the empty specimen tank I noticed earlier.

I still need to complete my mission, but I can’t stop thinking...

If Leon was with him, and they encountered something nasty enough to put Wesker down...

I have to find Leon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lost it when I first saw the Project: Resistance trailer and realized Umbrella employees control tyrants with the power glove. Fantastic lore addition, 10/10 whoever came up with that.


	16. In Which Wesker Objects to Nicknames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two injured men sitting in a control room, not k-i-s-s-i-n-g because they don't have the energy.

“....and now I think I might have caused this outbreak.”

Wesker forced himself out of a light doze, clawing back to consciousness on the thread of Leon’s voice. Leon, who had tired of standing and was sprawled out on the floor a few safe inches away from the blood puddle, had directed this grave statement to the ceiling and didn’t seem to have noticed Wesker had clocked out for a moment.

“What?” Wesker said.

“I remembered something when I saw that tank. I’m the one who let C-L out. We passed each other in the hallway during transit. The guards were distracted, so I unlatched the lock on his tank. He looked so normal, and I was so doped up on sedatives, it didn’t even occur to me he might be a bioweapon.”

He wanted to laugh at the irony of it. Just this once, Leon’s compulsive compassion had done more damage than anything Wesker had brought to the table. It explained C-L’s unusual behavior neatly. He had tried to take Leon away, rather than destroy him. Perhaps somewhere deep beneath the confusion and psychosis, he simply wanted to escape together with a fellow specimen, like any survivor would.

“How unexpected. Well, that move may have saved your life. If he hadn’t kicked up all this fuss, you would be under Umbrella’s knives right now.”

“I guess.” Leon still looked troubled. “It’s a weird feeling, being responsible for an outbreak. After everything I’ve done to stop and prevent them...” He shifted suddenly. “That reminds me. I also found this, on the floor.”

Leon pulled an off-white radio and attached ear piece from one of the lab coat’s deep pockets.

So, he must have run across the spot where Wesker’s men had died. Perhaps that had been mentioned in the piece of the conversation he’d missed. Wesker reached out a hand for the device, and Leon tossed it. The radio bounced off his arm and landed in his lap.

“Didn’t have a chance to test if it worked,” Leon said.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter,” Wesker reflected as he picked up the radio. “40 minutes ago I would have loved to have this.”

“Yeah...I guess all your men are locked outside, huh.”

That wasn’t the reason. His men were equipped with explosives, and he had a tyrant. Any barriers between them was not the issue.

“What about Mike?” Leon asked.

“Barker?”

“If he is alive, and he’s around here somewhere...” Leon trailed off, looking grim. He knew just how unlikely that was, same as Wesker did. “He’d be in much better shape than either of us, at least.”

If, somehow, miraculously, that lone agent had survived, he could possibly be useful. He could serve as a decoy if nothing else. Of course, Wesker wouldn’t be allowing Barker to find them. He could not let news of his vulnerable condition get back to HCF.

He attached the ear piece and tried the radio. It hummed, awaiting input, and the screen lit up. Perhaps it had not suffered too much when C-L threw it at the wall.

“Barker, come in. Barker?”

There was no response. Either the radio wasn’t actually working, or Barker was dead. He would put his money on the latter.

“Nothing. I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“I know what you’re going to say,” Leon said. “I just. I’m so sick of people dying.”

“You’re in the wrong line of work, in that case,” Wesker told him.

“Yeah. Should’ve listened to mom and become a dentist.”

Wesker let the hand holding the radio fall into his lap.

“I can’t picture it,” he admitted.

“Neither can I,” said Leon.

They lapsed into a comfortable silence, and in it lay danger. Quiet breaks in conversation were a natural and well-documented phenomenon, but as the quiet stretched on, Wesker felt fatigue looming over him, its claws digging in behind his eyes, trying to drag them shut. He knew what his body was trying to do. It wanted to enter a coma, so it could heal. This was the mechanism of the T-family viruses, to put the carrier in a death-like state in order to conserve energy while damage was being repaired--or while new architecture was built from the old flesh in bizarre mutations. Wesker could not afford to enter the death state again. He’d barely snapped himself out of it after the incident happened. If he went under now, he might not wake for days.

This was not a good place to lose consciousness. Not only was Hunk lurking around, but C-L had it in for him now as well. There was also the matter of Leon. No matter how innocuous he was acting, leaving that man to his own devices always wrecked Wesker’s plans somehow. He knew this consciously. Unconsciously, he was comfortable enough in Leon’s presence to not merely fall asleep, but potentially enter a coma. It was a worrying development and he didn’t like it.

It was Interesting, however, that Leon’s first reaction to seeing him had been to treat his wound, and his second had been to kiss him. He had expected the former. It fit Leon’s established pattern. The kiss, on the other hand...

Certainly they had kissed in the past, but it had never felt like that before. He replayed the moment in his mind, puzzling over the way Leon’s face had seized up into that indecipherable expression right before he’d pounced. The other man had tried to brush it off as pure lust, but Wesker would have recognized that. There was something else, something he was missing.

Tenderness. That was the word. He had been both tender and domineering at the same time, as he had never been before. Wesker’s gaze shifted to the man lying on the floor. There was something he could do with that, if only he had the energy to calculate right now. He filed the revelation away for later.

“I knew a Mike in Spain,” Leon spoke up. “He was my backup. I’d never met him before that mission--never really got to know him at all, to be honest. But when you’ve been fighting angry cultists alone for 12 hours and then someone shows up in a helicopter with a minigun to back you up....that creates a special kind of bond, you know?”

“I can’t say I’ve ever had anyone come to my aid quite so dramatically,” Wesker said.

“Saddler had him shot down. That moment when the RPG hit, it felt like all my hope was going down in flames right along with the chopper. But I didn’t give up. It just made me angry. That was the moment when I decided, getting Ashley to safety and completing the mission couldn’t happen until Saddler was gone. And I was going to be the one to put him down.”

“Could it be you’re so attached to Barker because he reminds you of the other Mike?”

“Do I really have to go through the ‘he deserves to live because he is a person’ spiel again?”

Wesker huffed softly, the best he could do as a laugh.

“Sometimes,” he reflected, “I have difficulty believing you’re real.”

“Uh. I’ll take that as a compliment, I guess.”

Perhaps driving further conversation would help him stay awake. It was worth a try, and Leon had never been hard to talk to. If anything, he made it too easy. He cast about for a conversation topic before settling on something informative.

“How is your stomach?”

“Throbbing. Upset.” Leon waved a careless hand. “Better now that I’m not running for my life. How did you even find me, anyway?”

“The same way Hunk found you, I’m sure.” Wesker gestured to the monitors, most of which were blacked out. “It was clever of you to let the men with flamethrowers clear your path, but, I’m afraid they also uncovered one of the security cameras.”

“Oh.”

Wesker considered the man flopped on the cold, hard floor. Despite his injury, Leon had proven as capable and resourceful as ever. He really was an impressive survivor. Even without Wesker’s intervention, he may have made it out of here by himself. Leon was strong. There could be no doubt of that.

“I don’t recommend this floor, by the way. I’ve slept on nicer rocks,” Leon said.

“Unfortunately, there’s only one chair.” On a whim, Wesker turned the chair towards the computer and typed out a few quick commands, which he then executed. There followed a rustle of heavy fabric.

“Uh....why is Mr. Y stripping?”

“Mr. Y,” Wesker echoed flatly as the tyrant approached with its trench coat in its hands. It still wore its restraint suit, the many buckles and straps visibly bulging as they served their purpose of keeping the tyrant’s mutation under control.

“Yeah. Figured if he’s going to stick around, I might as well name him.”

“Mr. Y,” Wesker said again.

“We called the one in Raccoon Mr. X.”

“It’s a T-00.”

“That’s not a name,” Leon protested. “That’s something you’d call a killer robot.”

The tyrant dropped its heavy outer coat on Leon’s head, resulting in a muffled yelp.

“The tyrant is an organic killer robot, more or less,” Wesker said smugly. “Lie on that. It should be a little better than the hard floor.”

“It smells weird,” Leon complained, though he complied anyway. The tyrant continued to watch blankly until Leon had spread the coat out and rolled on top of it. Judging its task completed, the tyrant returned to its post near the door.

“But it’s more comfortable, is it not?”

Leon shifted around on his new bed of oily leather, clearly relieved but unwilling to admit it. “This isn’t going to infect me, is it?” Leon asked.

“No, Leon, you can't be infected by smelly cloth.”

"I'm just checking."

* * *

Ada’s Report 7

Chasing Hunk away from the security stations is becoming a full time job. I have an idea where Leon is now, the problem is just going to be getting to him. We’re on opposite sides of the facility, with the locked control room between us. I had hoped I could force my way north through the residential area through the new holes someone broke in the walls, but someone has turned that entire section into one hell of a party. I stuck around long enough to watch the BOW ambush a team of Umbrella’s forces before deciding on another route. The Umbrella teams are doing their best to whittle away the mold with fire, but it’s absolutely everywhere and their fuel supplies won’t last forever.

The last thing I need is to get caught in that mess. I’m going to try doubling back towards the control room. Even if it’s still locked, I should be able to loop around it through the storage rooms.

As for my objective, it’s locked behind yet another shutter. Neither Hunk nor I have the access to reach it unless one of us breaks into the control room, or convinces that Tyrant to lend a hand.

* * *

“How long did you say it’s been since I disappeared?” Leon asked

“Mm?” Wesker forced his eyes open. “Two weeks,” he replied.

“It’s definitely after the 14th then, isn’t it.”

“Yes.”

“Dammit. That means I missed dad’s birthday. Hell of a present, huh? Happy 68th, dad, your son’s gone missing again.”

“Ah--that’s right. You still have your parents.”

He didn’t think about what an odd statement that must be until he noticed Leon’s bemused stare.

“I’m going to get such an earful when I get out,” Leon went on. “They’re wonderful people and they’ve always been really supportive of what I do, but you know how it is. You get wrapped up in one end of days disaster and any time you disappear for more than 48 hours, you come home to 80 frantic messages demanding to know if you’re safe.”

“I don’t, actually,” he said without thinking.

“No one to fret if you miss a check in, huh?” Leon didn’t sound surprised.

“Technically, I’m an orphan.”

He could let the conversation drop here. There was no need and no advantage to continue doling out pieces of himself to this man. Yet he found he wanted to.

“Why is everyone I know missing a parent? Am I in a Disney movie?” Leon was muttering to himself.

“Unlike Chris or Claire or even Jill, I never knew my birth parents. I’m told I was found in a dumpster.”

Leon grimaced the same way everyone did when he revealed that little tidbit. His family situation had always been useful for garnering sympathy, in the rare event he needed it. Once upon a time, it had been just the right card to finally curb Redfield’s anti-authority streak and form a connection with his STARS point man. Truthfully, Wesker didn’t care. He didn’t miss the parents he’d never known and he had not shed a single tear pining for the life they might have had together. It pained his vanity more than anything, to admit he’d been a foundling.

All he had of his birth parents was one single memory of his mother, hazy and distorted as all memories saved by a young, developing brain are. He remembered a young woman with his blond hair and his (old, human) mossy-gray eyes, her face terrified and tear-streaked as she shoved him down behind a couch. He’d always assumed it was a memory of some domestic dispute.

“Never got adopted?”

“Technically no. I was raised in a foster family, with 12 brothers and sisters.”

“That’s a bigger family than I expected. For some reason you scream ‘only child’ to me.”

Wesker smiled indulgently.

“Mr. Wesker had inherited a huge, crumbling old mansion from some obscure relative. He used to say he wanted a child for every room.”

“Sounds like a nice guy,” Leon said warmly.

“He wasn’t.” Wesker said this without a hint of bitterness or resentment, a plain statement of fact. “He was demanding, distant, and paranoid. The sort of man who never accomplished much with his life and therefore dedicated himself to training his children to take on the world for him. He pushed us relentlessly. Most people would have been overjoyed to have a child skip a grade or two. He would not be satisfied unless all of us were enrolled in higher education before the tender age of 14. One of my sisters liked to say he’d walked out of a Dickens novel.”

Wesker paused, suddenly embarrassed. Why was he talking about all this? Leon wouldn’t care. Yet when he looked over, he found he had the other man’s rapt attention. It shouldn’t have been a surprise. Leon carried so much innocent curiosity about the lives of everyone around him that he would paw through the diaries of dead men while in the middle of a zombie outbreak.

“You don’t throw many birthday parties for him, I’m guessing?” Leon prompted when Wesker did not continue.

“Not a one. If he’s even still alive, he probably thinks I’m dead. The RPD would have sent him a notice after the Spencer mansion incident. I’ve never bothered to correct the point.”

“What about the other kids? Do they know you’re alive?”

The other children. His once-siblings. Now he remembered why he never liked thinking about this chapter of his life.

“This isn’t going to be a happy story, is it?” Leon asked. “Your eyes just flared up like headlights.”

Wesker shut his telltale eyes, leaning his temple on his first two fingers. This was ancient history, and really, there was no cause to still be upset about it.

“Most of my siblings didn’t make it to adulthood,” he said. “There was a terrible flu that swept through the surrounding village when I was about 9. All of us children were infected. More of us might have lived if Mr. Wesker hadn’t had such ridiculous and misguided ideas about healthcare. He wouldn’t give us any medicine and refused to take anyone to a hospital. We needed to ‘tough it out’, he said. It was natural selection in action.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“I made it. My immune system has always been uncommonly robust. Only one other of my siblings lived, and that was because I snuck out at night to smuggle her medicine. He never realized she only survived because I ‘cheated’ nature.”

“11 kids dead. Did he get arrested? Lose his foster license, at least?”

“Why would he?” Wesker snorted. “There’s no law against being an idiot. We were swarmed with sympathy and condolences. No one ever guessed the part he played in the deaths.” He looked away from Leon, turning his gaze up at the many black monitors. “That was the moment when I decided to become a virologist.”

“And yet you ended up _making_ plagues,” Leon pointed out, his tone accusing.

Wesker shrugged, a minute twitch of the shoulder that Leon probably couldn’t see from the floor. He had changed a great deal since he was 9. Life experience had shown him that a few of his guardian’s ideas had merit. Indeed, Wesker had learned much from the man who had provided his surname--just not the lessons he intended to teach.

“What about that one sister? You still talk to her?”

“She followed me into Umbrella. However, she couldn’t leave the company the way I did. She was too afraid. I’m not sure where she is now.”

* * *

Mr. Y’s trench coat, despite smelling like it had spent the past 20 years moldering in the closet of a rendering plant, was a huge improvement over the tile floor. Leon’s shoulders and hips had finally stopped screaming at him, and he could feel bloodflow returning to his arms. Not that Leon would admit any of this to Wesker, who no doubt had some ulterior motive behind the little act of kindness. He also didn’t want to admit that the presence of the looming giant standing watch over the door put him at ease, somewhat.

What didn’t soothe him was the way Wesker kept drooping as they talked. Incredible viral healing powers or not, if Wesker fell asleep right now, he might not wake back up. He’d tried to tell himself that _worrying_ over _Wesker_ was as stupid and ill-advised as you could get, but the feeling stubbornly persisted. So he’d inched forward a little, until he had a clear view of Wesker’s face from the floor, and any time he noticed the older man’s eyes staying closed a little too long he would throw out another question. So far, Wesker had yet to deflect or refuse to answer a single one. It was fascinating, getting to talk to him when he was so tired his guard was a fractured mess. Leon was trying not to take advantage too obviously.

A few things had become obvious to him while they rested and shot the shit. One, that the hole in Wesker’s side was closing impossibly fast, but not fast _enough_. Two, that the longer they stayed here, the more they were in danger of being surrounded. And three--that he was not going to get a better chance to carry out his own personal objective.

Fortunately, he had a plan.

“How’s your stomach?” he asked.

“Improving,” Wesker said.

“I’ve been thinking,” Leon began, and bit back a smile at the way Wesker looked uneasy about that, “do we know where C-L is?”

“You have access to the same information I do. We haven’t heard any dramatic bangs. Chances are he’s around the same section we left him.”

Leon got up, a delicate operation that involved rolling on to his hands and knees before carefully levering himself upright. He came to Wesker’s side and studied the wound for a bit. The differences were slight, but there were no more white shards of bone showing. With another inch or two of flesh, Wesker might even be able to hold his own chest upright.

“Look at that. It does look better,” he said. “Hey, have you got a map of this place?”

Wesker called one up on the screen. Leon went over to study it, a thoughtful humm buzzing in his throat.

“So the specimen elevator is...”

“Top left corner.”

“Ah. And the delivery entrance is over here...” his finger slid to the right. “And we’ve probably got C-L and a pack of armed goons blocking our path to both exits.”

“Very likely.”

Leon turned to him.

“What if I told you I found some files suggesting there’s a third exit?”

“I hope you’re not talking about the other elevator,” Wesker said.

“No, it’s hidden in a secret passage. Right...here.” he pointed.

“Section 3?”

“All these doors should be open now, right?” Leon gestured to the bottom row of shutters that had once quarantined the outbreak away from sections 1-9.

“Yes.”

“So we could cut down through here, avoid all those jerks, and make it out.” His finger traced an L shape from section 28 to section 3.

“If your other exit really exists, then yes. That would be the safest way. We don’t know what to expect from section 28. All cameras are blacked out there.”

“And you still need more time to heal. Let me scout ahead and secure the route, then I’ll come back for you.”

Now there was a look he hadn’t seen since Wesker had gotten the better part of a pound carved out of him. That special, narrow-eyed “do you think I’m an idiot?” stare, which hit a lot sharper with no sunglasses in the way.

“And I’m to trust that you’ll obediently come back for me once you’ve finished, is that it?”

“Hey. Of the two of us, you’re the one with the reputation for leaving your allies for dead,” Leon said.

“And you’re the one who always manages to ruin my plans any time I let you out of my sight.”

“What’s there to ruin? All we want is to get out of here, right?” On a whim, Leon leaned forward, settling one hand on the arm of Wesker’s chair while he gazed into the man’s eyes and willed him to see Leon’s sincerity. “I don’t want you to die here,” he said. “Maybe I _should,_ but...”

Wesker studied him for a minute, his eyes shifting back and forth between each of Leon’s. Eventually he seemed to reach a conclusion, and leaned his head back.

“You’re taking the tyrant with you.”

“What?”

“You have no means of defending yourself, and we don’t know what’s in section 28.”

“Right!” Leon agreed hotly. “No means of defending myself! And you want to stick me with that monster?” He jabbed a thumb at the Tyrant.

“How many times must I tell you that you have nothing to fear from it?”

“Give me a minute with the DSO archives and I can get you a long list of all the scientists whose beloved creations turned on them.”

“Let me rephrase,” Wesker said, motioning deliberately with his fingers. Heavy footfalls stamped up behind Leon, summoned by the movement. “He will not allow you to leave this room without him.”

Leon twisted around to scowl up at the tyrant’s impassive face.

“I really can’t talk you out of this?”

“If you would rather waste time arguing...” Wesker spread a hand, looking criminally unconcerned.

“Fine. I’m reserving the right to tell you ‘I told you so’ when it goes wrong.”

“As am I, when nothing happens.”

Wesker reached over and pressed a button on the console. The screen lit up with a downward view of both himself and Wesker. Leon realized it was coming from the Tyrant, and judging by the angle, there had to be a camera mounted somewhere near those milky eyes.

“I will be piloting him directly as much as possible. I’ve also activated his bodyguard program. Should the need arise, he will automatically follow you and attack anything he deems a threat.”

“You said he didn’t have much brain power.”

“He doesn’t. ‘A threat’, in this case, is anything moving that isn’t you or me. Try not to let him get too distracted by stray hands.”

“And how do I do _that?_ ”

“Walk away from them,” Wesker replied, as if that were obvious. “You still have the Umbrella radio? Good. If you must contact me, use that. Do remember that the enemy may be listening in.”

“Alright. C’mon, Trenchy, let’s hit the road.”

Wesker grimaced.

“’Trenchy.’”

“You’re the one who didn’t like Mr. Y.”

“This is worse. He’s not even wearing his trench coat anymore.”

Beaming beatifically, Leon patted Wesker gently on the shoulder as he passed.

“I’ll be back soon,” he promised.

He tried not to let on how eager he was as he left the room. The map had showed him something else in addition to the route he needed to sector 3, something he’d been looking for for a long time now.

The location of the Green Lab. And it was just a short detour away from sector 28.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the files in RE 5 say that the Wesker project was named for its lead researcher, but we never find out anything else about him or what his role was. This gives me free reign to develop the character however I want >:)  
> We don’t know many hard details about the project in general, other than the fact all the other kids died. Fandom’s had a lot of different interpretations about how it might have played out. This is the one I chose to go with.
> 
> But I gotta be honest, the whole Wesker children plot twist never worked for me. A big part of what drew me to Wesker in the first place was that he was almost an underdog villain, you know? He started out as a lowly scientist/field agent and clawed his way to the top through sheer cunning, tenacity, and SCIENCE. Having it turn out that he was just super special all along and part of an Umbrella project, basically an Umbrella trust fund kid, just...really spoiled that for me. Did you really have to turn him into Sephiroth, Capcom? Was he not cool enough as a self-made monster?  
> I know that a lot of people love the idea of the Wesker children project, and more power to you if you do. Different tastes and all. For me, I usually like to pretend the whole thing doesn’t exist, but that’s becoming harder and harder to do in modern RE fandom where so many of the people got into the series after RE 5. So if I have to address it, then there’s 2 potential ways I see of fixing my problems with it. The first is to have Wesker know about the project the entire time, and turn his entire post-resurrection crusade against Umbrella into a revenge story. The second is to keep things subtle, and give Spencer less actual control over Wesker’s path than he thinks he has. Option B is what I’m choosing for this universe.  
> Either way, the most important thing to me is making sure Wesker keeps as much of his own agency as possible.


	17. In Which the Tyrant Further Abuses Walls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leon runs into a few old friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those curious, here's how I worked out the power balance between all these monsters
> 
> T-00/Mr. Y/other mass produced tyrants: Stronger, bigger, can kool aid man through walls, tougher skin/more damage resistant, prone to mutation if sufficiently damaged/restraint coat is taken off
> 
> Wesker: Faster, better/quicker regeneration, cannot kool-aid man through walls but can spiderman up them instead, will not mutate as long as he is taking his serum
> 
> C-L: about as strong as a human bodybuilder, fragile body with extreme regeneration (think jack from re 7), can only kool aid man through walls if he has enough molded, not very fast, relies on ambushes and sheer numbers to overwhelm enemies. More of an AOE spammer than anything.

Leon had been prepared for a lot of things as he stepped back out into the wild unknown of unexplored laboratory: mold, more mold, mold-shaped appendages with objections to his bones being unbroken, angry men with flamethrowers. What he did not expect was the barking of nearby gunshots.

“The strike team should know better than to use bullets on C-L, right?” Leon asked his unwanted chaperon.

Mr. Y had no input to share.

“Right,” Leon said. There was only one other factor down here who would be using a gun, and the thought of her sent him towards the gunshots instead of away, like a sane person.

The tyrant hung back a second before following him. Leon could imagine Wesker on the other end, fuming with confusion over why Leon had abruptly shifted course. Leon was no fool. He knew Wesker hadn’t sent the Tyrant with him purely out of concern for his well-being. It was a measure to keep an eye on him, too.

That hesitation on the tyrant’s part turned out to be a damned good stroke of luck for him, when he found Ada reloading her pistol. Their eyes met. Was he imagining it, the way her eyes seemed to light up at the sight of him?

No time to dwell on that.

“Get out of sight, quick!” he said, with frantic gestures for her to hide. Confusion stalled her for a few tense seconds, and he feared she wouldn’t listen. The approaching footsteps must have convinced her to comply. The corner of her red dress vanished into a nearby room not a moment before Mr. Y arrived.

“Are there any hostiles left ahead?” Leon asked at a hushed yell. “My new bodyguard’s got a camera in his head, but I don’t think it gets audio,” he added.

“New bodyguard?” Ada repeated.

“Wesker’s piloting a tyrant.”

He passed Ada’s door, making a show of inspecting the corridor while carefully keeping his face angled away from the BOW looming behind him. Two bodies lay on the floor, dressed in body armor with Umbrella logos.

“So he is still alive...” Ada said. She sounded just as torn about the idea as he felt. “He didn’t look so good the last time I saw him.”

“That’s Wesker for you,” Leon said. He frowned, noticing the bodies were starting to twitch and bubble. The tyrant swept past him, on a slow but purposeful beeline for the nearest corpse. Threat detected, apparently. That or Wesker had noticed the same thing Leon had.

“As soon as I clear a route, we’re getting out of here,” Leon said. “I don’t know what you came here for, but I wouldn’t stick around if I were you. Umbrella’s men are crawling all over this place, not to mention that thing that wiped out the entire lab.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Ada told him. “I may not have a tyrant for a bodyguard, but I can handle a few rowdy boys.”

“I think you’ve been doing better than I am,” Leon admitted. A quick glance down the hall confirmed that Mr. Y was almost finished stomping heads in. They didn’t have much time to talk.

“Listen, Umbrella wants to capture C-L and take it out of here. I don’t think they should have it. If you happen to see a self destruct button anywhere...”

“I’ll keep an eye out.”

“Thanks, Ada.”

The tyrant turned and looked at him.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” he grumbled, trotting to catch up to it.

“Don’t go north!” Ada called at his back. “It’s a little hotter than you can handle right now.”

He didn’t dare respond, with the tyrant’s eyes on him. Ada would be fine. She had that knack, same as he did, of always finding a way out no matter how tricky the situation got.

This section was not molded up nearly as bad as many of the others, though the presence of the fungus was there, lurking in the corners and covering the walls. There were no large growths and no hands, so C-L must have been far away.

As awkward as the BOW made socializing, having the tyrant around made things so easy he almost wanted to take one home with him. They ran across a few more Umbrella men, all already dead courtesy of Ada. A few of them still tried to be threats despite their deceased status, and that was where Mr. Y weighed in, heavily, with the heel of his boot or the flat of his palm.

“These corpses are recent,” Wesker observed over the radio. “And they’ve all been shot.”

“...yeah. They have.” Leon tried to sound nonchalant, like it was a minor detail he had only just noticed.

“Strange. I wouldn’t expect the Umbrella forces to turn on each other.”

“Hey, Hunk, you didn’t let C-L get a gun did you?” Leon asked facetiously.

“Goddammit, are those two still alive?” someone replied.

“I thought the tyrant carried him off?” asked a second voice. “To...I dunno, have his wicked way with him or something?”

“Well he sure fucking sounds alive to me!”

“Cut the chatter,” Hunk ordered. “I’d worry about my own skin if I were you, Wesker. We can handle your agent.”

Leon tensed, worried that Hunk would say more. He knew who Ada was. He probably thought she was here working under Wesker. If he let slip too much, if Wesker suspected...Leon wasn’t sure exactly how things would shake out between them, but that potential threesome would probably be off the table. Permanently.

If Wesker noticed anything, he made no comment, and the Umbrella team fell silent.

Soon enough, they came to the crossroad that he had been looking for. Leon had run through about six different plans in his head before deciding that the direct approach would be best. Wesker wasn’t used to people being direct. It knocked him off balance.

Leon stepped in front of the Tyrant and waved, catching Wesker’s attention and forcing the BOW to stop. He pointed at the turning that would lead to section 16. Mr. Y turned to follow his pointing finger, then looked back at Leon. Leon grinned and mouthed “this way.” Then he simply walked off.

Mr. Y stumbled after him with an almost comical about-turn.

Leon firmly took the lead after that, always waiting to make sure Mr. Y kept up with him, and ignoring any motions it made to get him to turn around. He could almost feel the frustration radiating from Wesker through the BOW. It even tried to grab his shoulder a few times, but Leon would nimbly duck away.

“Leon, where are you going?” Wesker demanded, voice flat. He sounded tired again. Apparently, he had gotten fed up enough to risk using the radio.

“Detour. Don’t worry, I’ll be quick,” Leon replied. He came to the barrier marked ‘16’ and smiled to himself. It was still closed. No one had made it here yet.

“Can you open this shutter, or do I need to find a way to the crawlspace?”

Wesker sighed. “Is there no way I can persuade you to return to our planned route?”

“Nope.”

The shutter retracted reluctantly.

“Thanks.”

He had memorized the corkscrew path to the corner lab, and navigated the utterly pristine hallways swiftly to his goal. The green lab demanded an ID card for access, which he produced. The door admitted them with a soft beep.

The lab looked half-packed. Leon would have worried about that if he hadn’t glanced through some of the boxes and seen it was all materials relating to C-L. There was also a gap in the line of large specimen tubes where C-L’s pod would have fit neatly.

The remaining tanks all held plaga parasites at various stages of development.

“Oh,” Wesker said. “So this is what was eating at you.”

“You didn’t think I’d leave without destroying some specimens, did you?” Leon asked as he set to work. Someone else on the radio made a startled exclamation, but he ignored them. He piled up all the boxes and files in the center of the room, along with some hard drives, and set the whole pile on fire. Then he began to break out and incinerate specimen samples one by one.

“Not that I don’t understand the compulsion,” Wesker said, “But don’t you think this is a waste of time?”

“With all the Umbrella people crawling around? No, I don’t.”

“We could simply hit the self destruct on the way out.”

“Not taking any chances.”

“You don’t want Umbrella getting a hold of these. I understand,” Wesker sighed. “Do please hurry.”

“These what?” someone demanded.

“They’re in one of the labs!”

“Yeah, like that narrows it down.”

One corner of the room held trays upon trays of vials containing a vibrant red fluid. The labels all read P-30. Leon’s heart about jumped from his chest when he identified them. However, Wesker was watching, and he couldn’t afford to draw attention to the vials. He managed to keep his face straight as he pulled out a vial of serum, looking it over like he had no clue what it was. He shrugged for the camera, pulled out a tray, and dropped it into the fire.

“What is that?” Wesker asked.

“Not sure. Eggs, maybe.”

“May I advise that indiscriminately throwing unknown liquids into a fire could lead to a chemical reaction on a level you are unprepared for?”

“Nothing’s exploded yet,” Leon said cheerfully as he destroyed another tray. Every one of these gone was like another boulder lifting off his chest.

In less than five minutes, the entire contents of the lab had been incinerated to Leon’s liking. He’d done it. He’d really done it. That vile stuff was gone for good. Whatever happened next, he could go out into the world feeling a little bit safer.

He left it all burning and found his way back out of section 16 even faster than he had come in. The Tyrant lagged behind him--he had to force himself to slow down a little so it could catch up, too used to booking it at the sound of that distinctive gait.

He should have realized that everything was going far too smoothly. Fate caught up with him at the shutter to section 16, and it came with a vengeance in the form of a man with an assault rifle. Leon had passed through the opening with his head turned, checking behind him for Mr. Y, and only noticed his guest when a gravelly voice commanded him to stop and put up his hands.

“Just like I thought,” Hunk said. “You’re all alone, aren’t you? Otherwise, you wouldn’t need our radios to talk to Wesker.”

“Nice deductive reasoning. Why don’t you leave all this behind and go open up a detective agency?”

Internally, he was kicking himself. He already knew Hunk had some way of accessing the security cameras, and all the ones in section 16 were still functional. He should have seen this coming.

“Tell me where he is and I’ll let you live,” Hunk said.

“You expect me to believe that?” Leon scoffed.

“What have you got to lose? I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but I know this. A guy like you could never work with a guy like him. You and me--we both understand concepts like loyalty and camaraderie. That snake doesn’t care about anything but his own skin.”

“Maybe,” Leon said. Given what he’d heard from Hunk, he had doubts about the ‘camaraderie’ bit. “But given the choice, I’d pick Wesker over Umbrella any day.”

Where the hell was the Tyrant? Leon didn’t feel or hear the brute behind him. He didn’t think he’d gotten that far ahead. Surely Wesker should have noticed that he was standing in the hall with his hands up, obviously behind held at gunpoint--unless Wesker had started to doze again, and the stupid BOW was idling because it didn’t see danger right in front of it. Discreetly, he pushed the talk button on the radio in his hand, so it would pick up their conversation.

“It’s funny that you think there’s that much of a difference,” Hunk said.

“So why are you still wearing that symbol? How could Umbrella possibly deserve your loyalty? Don’t tell me it’s the dental plan.”

“You’re stalling,” Hunk said. “Just tell me his location. He’s injured, isn’t he? That’s why he’s hanging back. I can finish him. The world would be better off without him and you know it.”

* * *

Wesker had always had exceptional endurance. Whether as a child, taking on the school workload of three high school juniors, as a teenager, forgoing sleep for days at a time to keep an entire laboratory running through the chaos caused by his co-head’s fits of uncontrolled genius, or as an adult, juggling work as a counterintelligence agent, an acting head of Arklay’s security, and captain of an elite squad of police officers all at the same time. He was no stranger to shutting out his body’s cries for rest, nor keeping himself going on sheer bullheaded willpower.

The room had been growing darker and grayer for a while, and Wesker had ignored it as he always did, driving his every last bit of energy and focus into guarding Leon while he took his maddening little detour. That man was the only one who may be just as stubborn as Wesker in achieving his goals at any cost, only his priorities were warped. While Leon was off playing hero, Wesker could do nothing but sit and glower and pretend he didn’t notice the numbing cold creeping up from his fingertips and toes.

He had to ignore it because it was all too tempting, that cold numbness. His organs had recovered enough for the nerves to regrow, flooding his whole body with the vague, achy discomfort of visceral pain. Healing was always so much more of a bitch than getting hurt. He thought, for just one treacherous second, how nice it would be to let go and dissolve into the painless void.

The next thing he new, tense voices were speaking from a point near his hip and he had his forehead crushed against a smooth LCD screen. Wesker startled awake, his arms scrambling to push himself up with the coordination of a child’s marionette.

“You think you can take him? I doubt it.”

“Sure I can. It’s just a question of the right ammunition.”

Somewhere far above him, on the surface of thoughts he’d sunk so far away from, an alarm bell was ringing, its sound smothered by distance. There was something...important....in the identities of the speakers. What had he been doing? Some kind of experiment, no, a test, to see if Leon would really come back for him.

“It’s your fault I got dragged into this mess in the first place. If you think I’m going to help you, you’re nuts.”

Leon. That voice was Leon’s. He struggled to focus on the screen, to see what the tyrant saw. The view was almost pure white, with a small stain in one corner. He reset the sensors on his gloves and commanded the tyrant to take a few steps back. Apparently, he had piloted it into a wall.

“Where the hell am I...?” he muttered hoarsely while he swung the tyrant’s head around, struggling to get his bearings.

Everything around it was white, featureless hallway. Try as he might, he could not remember passing through it before. Goddamn Umbrella lab design, everything looked the same until it was covered in blood--

Focus. Concentrate. He didn’t know where Leon had gone, but the T-00 might be able to hear him. He clicked off his direct control, allowing the BOW to activate its basic bodyguard programming. At once, the tyrant picked a direction and started walking.

“Nothing personal. Just doing my job,” Hunk said.

Hunk. The other voice was fucking Hunk. He knew he should have had him killed after Raccoon City, it was dangerous leaving someone actually competent in Umbrella’s employ. At the time he’d thought he had more important goals, if he’d only known--

There was Leon. He had his hands up and was standing on the other side of the shutter, facing someone out of sight. Wesker scrambled to take control back and halt the tyrant. The BOW was not built for stealth. If Hunk heard it coming, he would shoot, and Leon was still too far away for him to grab. What could he do?

“I could figure it out myself, if I spent the time. There aren’t many safe places where he could be hiding. Give me the excuse to let you go, Kennedy.”

Think, think, dammit. He had a goddamn tyrant. He and Will had pissed away the better part of their prime years perfecting this pinnacle of biological engineering. All he had to do was get Leon out of harm’s way. If he didn’t think, Leon was going to get shot. He did not want Leon shot, though he couldn’t remember why. It was a very strong feeling, almost as strong as his own desire to live. Leon getting shot did not gel with his future plans. He hated when people mucked up his plans.

How to get the tyrant into a position where it could intercept? This old model couldn’t run, not with the style of restraint coat it wore. No, he was thinking from the wrong angle, like a human limited to the open halls and doors before it. He didn’t need the paths someone else had built. He never had.

“What, you want me to live just out of the goodness of your heart? I don’t think so. Tell me what Umbrella wanted with me after they extracted the plaga. Why did your orders change?”

Wesker swung the tyrant around and maneuvered it in a circle, glaring in turns between the map of the complex and the feed from the Tyrant’s camera. He didn’t know how far down the hallway Hunk was standing. He’d have to take a wild guess.

“You think they would tell me that? My best guess is that Wesker--”

With a curl and jolt of his fist, he directed the Tyrant to punch its way through the wall. The Tyrant emerged just a few feet behind Hunk--not what he had been aiming for, but it would do. Hunk immediately turned and opened fire on the BOW. He knew where to shoot, right for the head, and controlling the BOW became much more difficult when his camera view kept jerking up and down from the impacts.

He swung, missed, tried to follow up with an elbow--the damn thing always had such an input delay in between attacks, they should have fixed that by now--managed to catch Hunk with a glancing blow that knocked him back a bit. Hunk never let up his stream of fire at the Tyrant’s head, and all too soon the mighty BOW fell to its knees, the screen lighting up with a warning that the Tyrant had received too much damage and was entering recovery mode.

Wesker grit his teeth, infuriated. Why wouldn’t this man just _die_? He was becoming almost as annoying as _Chris_.

Hunk’s body jerked, suddenly, a splatter of red gushing from the join of neck and shoulder. He toppled sideways. From the very top corner of the Tyrant’s camera, he could just make out Leon standing firm with a smoking a pistol. Wesker was so confused over where Leon had gotten a handgun that he forgot to be angry his orders had been disobeyed.

Whether Hunk was dead for good or not, Leon did not stick around. His legs padded off out of view. Wesker cut his connection and set the Tyrant to follow Leon as soon as it finished repairing itself. He planted his elbows on the console and focused on breathing. He had to stay awake, just a little bit longer. Just a little....

* * *

Leon cleared the rest of the route like he had the hounds of hell at his heels. At any moment, he feared, a team of armed men would pop up around the next corner. Mr. Y didn’t feel like such an unstoppable ally after Hunk had put it down so easily. Not permanently, of course--they needed heavier firepower for that--but enough to put it out of commission for five minutes. Five minutes was more than a trained professional would need to finish off a wounded man with a single handgun.

Mr. Y had been acting a lot less proactive since it had reappeared. Its movements were more stilted, and it took longer to process before deciding to attack. He hoped all that gunfire to the face hadn’t damaged anything. As bullet-resistant as a Tyrant’s flesh might be, it could only absorb so much shock.

They made it back to the control room without further incident. Leon rushed ahead, ready to chew Wesker out for waiting so long before intervening against Hunk.

“What was that back there? It took you long enou--oh Jesus Christ!”

Wesker had collapsed on the console, his torso hanging at a sickly angle that wouldn’t have been possible for someone with more flesh in the way. The man jerked at the sound of Leon’s voice, his eyes fluttering open. By the time Leon reached his side, he had leaned back into the chair.

“I thought you were getting _better_ ,” Leon said.

Wesker’s eyes closed in a grimace. “I need...somewhere safe.”

“No shit. We’re getting out of here, now. Way’s clear.”

Wesker nodded. Without warning, he lurched to his feet. He even managed to get mostly straight before his side buckled and his eyes popped. He just barely caught himself on the console.

“Woah--hey! Should you be moving?” Leon asked, alarmed.

“No,” Wesker groaned. “No choice.” The crazy bastard attempted to push away from the console and step forward. Predictably, he teetered on his feet, and his torso began to collapse sideways. Leon darted forward in a flash, wanting to catch him. Wesker batted him away with a hissed snarl of “STITCHES” and flinched backward, turning the maneuver into a graceless fall that landed him right back in the seat of the chair.

Leon had jerked away as if burned, and clenched his fists now as he watched Wesker catch his breath. He couldn’t help, once again, because his own body was too goddamn fragile. He hated this.

“Can’t you let that guy carry you?” Leon pointed at the waiting tyrant.

“Need his hands free. If we run into hostiles...” Wesker trailed off, his brow furrowing. “Where did you get the gun?”

“Found it. If anything happens, he can put you down. You can’t walk like this.”

Wesker bared his teeth, visibly seething yet unable to think of a counterargument. It was hard to tell who hated this situation more, himself or Wesker.

“He could push the chair maybe? It’s on wheels.”

“You saw the floor...”

He had. The floor was covered in mold and dead bodies, which would make for one hell of a bumpy ride. Scratch that idea.

“Emergency, emergency,” that computerized voice Leon had come to hate blared suddenly from the speakers, accompanied by the usual flashing red lights for extra panic. “The self destruct sequence has been activated. This sequence can not be aborted. All employees, evacuate.”

“That was quick,” Leon muttered under his breath. He hadn’t expected Ada to move so fast.

Wesker glared at the lights, bleary and miserable.

“You heard the recording. We’ve gotta get moving. So damn your pride, damn your paranoia, and let your giant flesh robot carry you.”

“....the last time he carried me, I lost several loose pieces.”

Leon grimaced at the mental image.

“Then I’ll put a temporary bandage on, just to hold you together until we’re out of here.” Leon was already stripping his coat off as he spoke. Wesker held up a hand, signaling for him to wait.

“That cabinet.” He pointed. “It has extra restraint clothing. Those should work.”

Leon didn’t understand how restraints would help, but he went to the cabinet anyway. Inside he found a whole heap of leather and buckles. The pile contained numerous odd corset-like garments of varying sizes and shapes. It looked like a fetish closet for giants. He took the smallest, squarest piece he could find--a Tyrant’s arm piece, probably--and brought it over.

“I hope this fits,” Leon said. He closed the leather around what remained of Wesker’s waist and started pulling straps tight. “You think they put enough belts on this thing?”

“Annie’s idea...” Wesker muttered.

“What?”

“Annette. We were stuck for months, tried everything to control the....the runaway mutations. She was the only one... _tighter._ It has to _support._ There, yes.” Wesker took a deep breath. “She was the only one who thought of using external pressure...”

“Will this hold?” Leon asked when he’d finished, one hand bracing Wesker’s side.

Wesker went and stood up again, the fucking moron, but this time he did not topple over.

“It will do.” He called the Tyrant over to him. The great height difference between them made it awkward for Wesker to lean on the tyrant for support. After some deliberation, he directed Mr. Y to hold its elbow out like a gentleman at a formal dance, and he was able to latch onto that.

Since the big guy was already there and inclined to be helpful, Leon went around to its other side and grabbed on to its free arm for extra support. The group of them must have looked like they were on their way to the weirdest three way date ever. Leon voiced this thought, and the dry look Wesker gave him in response came dangerously close to sparking a painful laughing fit.

So arranged, the trio made their slow, awkward, limping dash for safety. Nothing living or undead bothered them, and every inconvenient wall was given a stern talking to by Mr. Y’s fist. They made it back to section 3 in record time, considering Wesker, between his injury and the fact he had to concentrate on moving two pairs of legs, moved at the speed of an unmotivated zombie with one missing foot.

Wesker and his prom date hung back while Leon puttered around, hunting for the one section of wall Ada had shown him.

“Here it is. Right next to the fire escape post--Jesus, what happened to the floor here?” he asked, skirting around the hole ripped through concrete flooring.

“Me,” Wesker said.

“Wow. That’s one way to remodel.”

Leon stripped the poster off, unveiling the elaborate inlaid panel beneath. There were eight switches, each under a carved animal head. He knew he needed to push the switches in order, and that was about it. He had been too far down the hall to make out exactly which sequence she had used. A plaque affixed to the top of the panel read: “The Weak Exist to Be Eaten.”

“And here I thought we’d get out of here without finding a single puzzle,” Leon fumed. Good old Umbrella, couldn’t even build an emergency exit without some kind of brain teaser in front of it.

Wesker shouldered up next to him, escort in tow. He reached out with an unsteady hand and, methodically, flipped switches one after another. The wall shuddered and parted.

“How?” Leon demanded.

“Seen it before,” Wesker said. “You rank...weakest to strongest.”

Leon went on frowning at the panel while Wesker and his giant living crutch eased their way through the narrow doorway.

“Deer, wolf...snake, eagle?” He muttered to himself, with increasing disbelief. “That doesn’t make any sense. How is an eagle stronger than a wolf? And you expect me to believe a snake could beat a cougar?”

“Never underestimate a snake,” Wesker said. For a moment, a hint of his old sinister purr resurfaced through the pain and shortness of breath. “Think of it like...rock, paper, scissors. An eagle might not be a match for a wolf, but it eats the snake, who poisons the cougar.”

“Rock paper scissors. Ok. Except the deer doesn’t beat the eagle.”

“It doesn’t,” Wesker agreed. “The strong overpower the weak.”

“I don’t like this theme,” Leon said. “And it still doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

Leon joined him inside, letting the wall slide shut behind him. It muffled the self destruct countdown, leaving them in blessed silence. As far as secret passages went, this one was pretty lackluster, in Leon’s opinion. More of a glorified stairwell than anything.

That sure was a hell of a lot of stairs. At least ten flights or more, he’d wager. Leon cast a knowing look at Wesker, who already looked grim and resigned. There was no way he’d be able to climb all that way.

“They do say to always take the stairs in emergencies,” Leon said.

Wesker groaned out a sigh. Leon fought not to grin as he watched Wesker suffer the indignity of getting scooped up and carried off by his own creation. Turnabout was fair play, and all that. The way Wesker crossed his arms over his chest and glowered like a cranky teenager only made it harder not to laugh.


	18. In Which there is Light at the End of the Tunnel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wesker and Leon finally make it back up to the ski lodge, but they're not the only ones...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just three more chapters and some epilogues to go! It's surreal to me that this is almost all posted, after working on it for so long. I hope everyone has been enjoying the ride!

As he steadied his grip on the bouncing leather-buckled shoulder of the Tyrant, Wesker wondered idly what his younger self would think of seeing his ultimate lifeform reduced to a glorified stairlift. How many hours he used to spend as a young man, standing before the prototype Tyrant’s tank and staring, enraptured by its power, hardly able to believe they could push the limits of human flesh and bone so far. The Tyrant had once seemed the most perfect warrior, and he had dreamed of nothing more fiercely than getting to see it in action.

How far they had come since then. The Tyrant was, certainly, enormously strong and capable, as it was currently proving by flying up the endless stairs 3 steps at a time with two grown men cradled in its arms. Yet it seemed so outdated now, compared to the likes of G, and Nemesis, and even the plagas. There were greener pastures to explore, and greater creations still to be made. There was no more need to stand before it and stew with quiet awe and envy. Wesker had taken its power for himself.

That power had failed him, when he least expected it. He, like the Tyrant, was not the invincible perfect being he aspired to be, as he was reminded with every painful throb in the ragged edges of his midsection. Yet he survived, still, and so long as he lived there was still room for future self-improvement.

Still, wasn’t it fitting? That for a second time, the Tyrant, the first of his great triumphs, was liberating him from Umbrella. And once again, he made his escape with a great gaping hole in his gut.

“I never want to see another staircase in my life,” Leon griped from the other side of the Tyrant’s gray head, the sound of his voice bringing Wesker back into the present. They had only made it half a flight up the stairs before Leon had broken down and admitted the exercise was too great a strain on his abdomen. Each of them were now perched on one forearm, with their arms wrapped around the BOW’s chest and neck for balance. It no doubt looked every bit as ridiculous as it felt.

An indignity he would not have to suffer much longer. The Tyrant was coming up on the final landing, and the hidden doorway was in their sight. It had been a bumpy, uncomfortable ride, and Wesker was all too happy to slide off the Tyrant’s arm back to his own two feet. All that remained now was to run out through the ski lodge’s front door, sneak past Umbrella’s forces and whatever was left of his own men, and drive off in the jeep he had waiting. There was no announcement up here to tell them how long they had before the self-destruct activated. The timer had to be running low by now.

“Are you sure he shouldn’t carry you the rest of the way?” Leon asked as he too slid down.

“He will be occupied very shortly,” Wesker said. “We’ll need the distraction. To get past the HCF trucks.”

Leon paused with his hand on the hidden door leading out.

“I thought HCF was your people.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re sending a Tyrant after them and running away because...?”

They did not have time for this discussion. With an effort of will, Wesker forced his aching body to stagger forwards.

“Because you’re an enemy agent, and I’m not strong enough to defend myself when they turn on me.”

Leon gave him a very odd look indeed.

“This is what your whole life is like. Surrounded by people just like those hunters,” Leon said.

“What?”

“Do you have anyone who won’t turn on you at the first sign of weakness?” Leon asked. The anger simmering under those words caught him wrong-footed, made his already fatigue-stupid brain even stupider.

“One,” Wesker said, looking him in the eyes. “And if he doesn’t get moving, we will both be incinerated.”

That got him walking, at least. The secret passage opened out into the bar, the door hidden behind a moving liquor shelf. The room had not changed since Wesker had given it a cursory search so many hours ago; the fire in the fireplace still crackled merrily, and the abandoned laptop and skin mag still lay where they had fallen.

“You need better friends,” Leon told him as they headed out into the hallway.

“Most people are like that, Leon.”

“No, they’re really not. You just surround yourself with an unusually high concentration of assholes.”

“This, coming from someone who works in the government?”

“I--- _hey_ ,” Leon snapped, but could offer no better rebuttal.

They both went quiet as they entered the hallway. Black stains that had not been present on his previous tour had seeped through the walls in several places, and a thick coating of mold was crawling across the ceiling.

“God damn, it’s here too?”

“Ignore it,” Wesker commanded. They were almost out. He could see the front lobby from here.

“Wait.” Leon grabbed his shoulder. “That mold is moving. That means he’s here.”

They watched a pair of knobby hands bud out from the new black ceiling.

“How...?”

“You said it had a human level intelligence?” Leon asked. “Well it looks like he knows how to work an elevator.”

C-L was in the ski lodge. He couldn’t have understood the computer’s message, but perhaps the red warning lights had been an obvious enough danger sign for him to leave.

“Keep moving,” Wesker said. “He’s slow. We can outrun him.”

“We’re not about to win any 3 legged races ourselves,” Leon said. He cast a considering look over Wesker and the Tyrant. “Make that 4 legged.”

Their progress had never felt more painfully slow then it did then, limping their way closer to the reception hall. The mold made sickeningly moist squirming sounds above them. One newly grown hand swung down without warning, nearly clipping Leon’s ear. Leon ducked close to the sheltering bulk of Mr. Y, eyeing the hand warily. It waved about listlessly, apparently failing to sense them. Wesker was briefly thankful that C-L could not--or chose not to--grow eyes in his mold.

He breathed a little easier once they passed the reception desk. A fresh carpet of mold came inching across the floor from a side hall, and there were spots of it darkening the desk and stairs, and none of that mattered because the front door was right there and nothing would stop him from going through it.

A door creaked open above and behind them. They turned, looking up the staircase to the 2nd floor. C-L stood in the newly opened doorway of one of the locked bedrooms. He looked down at them, his pale eyes fixing first on the mammoth figure of the Tyrant, than flowing down to Wesker, and finally across to Leon. His face was a blank mask, utterly inscrutable. For all the fire and gunfire he had weathered since Wesker had seen him last, he did not look the slightest bit singed. Only the blood-soaked tatters of his gray rags gave away how much combat he had been through.

Slowly, C-L backed up into the open room, his eyes never leaving Leon’s face. Black mold surged up into the opening, a fan of hands and slime closing up the opening and shielding the BOW from view.

“Is the self destruct going to hit this house, too?” Leon asked in a whisper.

“Yes.”

They dashed for the front door (dash being a relative term--it was more of an enthusiastic forward wobble). It was almost anti-climactic when they burst out of the house, into the fresh night air. The Tyrant helpfully busted the lock on the front gate, allowing them through. After that was the steep slope down, which required them to hang off the Tyrant’s arms like a pair of swooning teenage girls once again.

“I hate to admit it, but this guy really comes in handy,” Leon groaned through grit teeth as they progressed.

“Is this the part where I can say I told you so?” Wesker asked him.

“Wait until we’re home safe.”

No sooner had they reached the sheltering trees at the base of the slope than the ski lodge above exploded in a massive ball of fire. Umbrella’s self-containment measures were dramatic but thorough, as usual. He watched the cleansing fire scorch all the rot from that place with vindictive satisfaction. No more hands reaching for him out of the dark, no more god-damned mold getting in his hair. There was relief, too, though he wouldn’t admit it, from a tight knot of anxiety that had coiled up in his center.

“Goodbye, Mike. And C-L,” Leon murmured beside him, equally entranced by the dancing flames.

“Stop feeling sad for every person who dies,” Wesker snapped.

“I don’t take orders from you,” Leon said back. He was smiling, though. “It’s just not the same without a dramatic final showdown with the big BOW. Not that I’m complaining.”

“You’re in no shape to fire a rocket launcher anyway,” Wesker said.

“Tell me about it. And you’re no better. We’d have to give it to Mr. Y.”

“The T-00 can’t use weapons.”

“We’d have been fucked, then.” He turned away from the billowing column of smoke and fire. “Where did you park?”

“Just over there.” He pointed. “I--”

He cut off, distracted by a tinny sound emitting from his pocket. It was his ear piece, suddenly alive with voices. Curious, he popped it in. His men were yelling over gunfire, struggling to organize a counter attack. It didn’t sound like their enemy was a BOW.

“What is it?” Leon asked, after Wesker had been listening a while in silence.

“Umbrella found the rest of my men.”

“Great. Who’s winning?”

“Not HCF.” He pocketed the ear piece, frowning. If he concentrated, he could hear the distant cracks of gunfire and yelling, steadily coming closer. “They’re heading this way. I’d better send the Tyrant to cut them off. We can make it alone from here.”

Leon nodded and turned to their silent bodyguard.

“I liked you a lot better than your older brother,” he told the BOW.

“He can’t understand you.”

“You don’t know that.” Leon clapped the Tyrant on the shoulder, or close to it. The Tyrant’s shoulder was quite a long way up. “I’m glad I didn’t have to shoot a rocket at you. And...thanks. For the assist.”

Wesker could have pointed out that it had been his own guiding hand which had rescued Leon, and the Tyrant had merely been the tool through which he acted. But, it had been a long day, and the agent was clearly feeling sentimental. He would let Leon have this.

The Tyrant’s stony expression did not even twitch at such a heartfelt goodbye. Wesker hit the button to deactivate direct control, letting the BOW fall back on the program he had entered earlier. At once the Tyrant animated, head swiveling back and forth, hands clenching and unclenching, his milky eyes rapidly analyzing his location. He studied both Wesker and Leon in turn, comparing them to his internal database of targets. Wesker was certain it was just his imagination that the Tyrant seemed to stare longer at Leon.

The BOW turned and stomped off. He would canvas the grounds until he found Umbrella or HCF, and neither would be long for this world after that.

“I think I get it now,” Leon said, as they watched the Tyrant climb back up the hill. “Why you would want to rely on monsters.”

“Finally coming to see their superiority?” Wesker asked.

“No. Just...compared to the people you work with? A monster you can control must seem a lot more reliable.”

The Tyrant’s broad back disappeared over the top of the ridge, and Wesker turned away.

“Come,” Wesker commanded. They weren’t safe yet, and his metaphorical fuel tank was into negative numbers.

He led Leon on a short hike through the woods to a jeep that had been hidden behind some overgrown bushes. It was a company car, as one could tell from its shiny, black and menacing design sense. Wesker felt very gratified at his foresight in taking separate transportation from the rest of the team.

“You got the keys?” Leon asked.

Wesker’s only reply was a derisive snort. Of course he had the keys. He had lost half his intestines, not his pockets. He continued to stagger towards the driver’s seat.

“You realize you can’t drive like that.”

Wesker stopped short. Leon...had a point. Not only was he having difficulty focusing and staying awake, but his abdominal injury would prevent him from using the pedals effectively. Which meant Leon had to drive.

Leon, whose terrible treatment of moving vehicles was so legendary that Ada thought he was cursed. Given Leon’s own injury was also abdominal, he could also have some trouble with the pedals--namely sudden, hard stops.

By degrees, Wesker cycled from horror to numb dread to resignation. He wished, suddenly and intensely, that he had a time machine so he could go back and teach the Tyrant how to drive. A ridiculous notion, more evidence that his exhausted mind was failing him. The BOW wouldn’t even have fit in the vehicle.

Almost belligerently, he dug the keys out of his pocket and thrust them at Leon.

“If you crash us, I will infect you.”

“I’m not going to scratch your paint job, relax,” Leon said.

He attempted to communicate, with the full force of his glare, that a scratch was the least of his worries. There was nothing else for it. Once again, he would have to trust Leon. He hated being in the passenger seat.

All the worry melted off as soon as he had actually settled into the car. No wonder Leon had kept sitting down throughout the facility. Being off his legs was heavenly.

“Where are we going?” Leon asked, speaking up over the roar of the engine turning over.

“I have a safe house hidden in the nearest city.”

* * *

Ada’s Report 7

Somebody took the liberty of trashing my ATV. I’ll have to secure some alternative transportation out of here. Luckily for me, these boys left all these nice vehicles sitting around while they went off to shoot each other.

The self-destruct should have destroyed all materials related to C-L, which fulfills part of my mission. I set the timer as high as it could go, just to give Leon a better chance to get out. I haven’t seen him yet, but I have a feeling he’s still alive. For one thing, his new bodyguard just rolled up and punched a man through a truck.

As for the other half of my mission, the surprise winner of this race seems to be Leon. I never took him for a dark horse. But, perhaps it’s for the best. I need to have a long talk with my employer about their future plans, when I get back.

* * *

Several hours of highway driving later, the black jeep pulled up in front of a nondescript row of town houses.

“You saw that, right?” Leon panted, glowering over his shoulder at a sedan rocketing off with its horn blaring. “That guy came out of nowhere!”

He turned to his passenger, seeking validation. Apparently Wesker hadn’t seen anything, because he had his eyes shut. Between the gray cast of his skin and how little he was breathing, he could have passed for a statue.

“Wesker?” he shook the man’s shoulder.

“I’m trying not to look,” Wesker muttered while moving as little as possible. “I need to keep my heart rate down.”

“I’m not that bad a driver,” Leon replied, exasperated. Really, he wasn’t. Sure, he’d had a few accidents. Everyone did. He’d like to see _anyone_ keep control of a police cruiser after a zombie lunged out of the backseat. “Look alive, we’re here.”

He poked his head out of the window, casually scanning the area for any onlookers. Anyone who got a good look at Wesker was going to notice how unnaturally small his waist was on one side, and unless Leon gave up his lab coat, they had nothing to cover that. The street appeared empty, save for one old lady at the end of the block who was absorbed in talking to a cat.

Wesker still hadn’t moved.

“Think you can make it inside? I can’t carry you.”

“I’ll make it,” Wesker snarled. Eager to prove the statement, he shoved the door open and pulled himself out of the car. Leon scrambled to catch up. The long trip had stiffened his legs into bricks, and he’d forgotten how much standing strained his abdomen. He must have looked like he was making fun of the old woman down the road, hunched over and shuffling his way up the walk to the door.

Wesker, usually so controlled and graceful, didn’t walk so much as propel himself through a series of barely controlled falls. He leaned his torso against the door and was stabbing at the keyhole with the door key when Leon caught up to him, his brow furrowing more every time the point of the key hit wood or knob instead of his target. Leon wrestled the key from him and batted his hands away so he could unlock the door. He then had to coax Wesker back off the door, so when he opened it the wounded man wouldn’t fall on his face.

At any rate, they made it inside. It was a pretty nice place, for a safe house. Dark hardwood floors, coffee-colored walls, an extremely tempting set of plush couches arranged around a flatscreen TV, a fully equipped kitchen. Everything had a thin layer of dust on it, and it smelled like no one had opened a window in several months.

The minute the door was shut and locked behind them, all the steely resolve seemed to melt out of Wesker. He started to fall. Leon lunged at him, shoving him in the direction of the kitchen counter so he could catch himself on his arms. His face was so tired. Leon knew that look. He’d seen it in the mirror sometimes, when he hadn’t slept in 5 days and a call came in that he needed to report somewhere else right that second.

“Let’s get to the bed, come on. You’re so close.” Leon tugged on his elbow, gentle yet insistent. If Wesker collapsed here, Leon would have no way to move him.

“Off--need this off,” Wesker groaned, his thin, wavering fingers tugging at the buckles on the restraint garment holding his insides in.

“Are you sure?”

“It’s in the way.”

“Ok. We’ll lie you down, and I’ll get some towels, and we’ll get it off.”

“Don’t need...towels.”

“This is a nice setup and you’re going to bleed everywhere. We need towels.”

Wesker blinked at him, eyes fuzzy with pain and confusion. It quickly became clear to him that Wesker, usually a reliably practical and quick-thinking genius, did not have enough left in him to think on all cylinders right now. It would be generous to say he was firing even one cylinder.

He was able to coax Wesker to the open bedroom door through a combination of prodding, verbal encouragement, and sheer stubbornness. The bed within had nothing on it but a charcoal gray sheet, and looked outrageously comfortable anyway by sheer virtue of having a mattress. Leon grabbed some towels from the adjoining bathroom and layered them over one side for Wesker to lay on.

When he had seen Wesker safely on to the bed (and it was a near thing that he hadn’t landed next to the bed and called it good), he unbuckled the corset-thing and tossed it aside. Another inch or so of flesh had grown out from the wound, which must have made the tight corset incredibly uncomfortable. Other than that it looked as ugly and fatal as ever. Blood began to seep immediately into the towels, not as much as he feared, but enough to feel vindicated about his precautions.

“I know first aid and a little field medicine, but you? You’re a whole different ball game,” he said, watching the red stain spread over the top towel. Nothing human shaped should still be breathing with this much of their gut missing, he’d known that the minute he first saw the wound, and thought it again now. His hands were bloody just from taking the corset off. “I don’t know what else to do. Think you could use another first aid spray?”

Wesker’s hand curled around Leon’s wrist and squeezed. It was not a gesture of wordless reassurance, more like the grasp of a drowning man seizing upon a life boat. Gradually his grip lost strength, and those burning eyes lost their focus, until they fell shut and Wesker stopped moving altogether.

“Wesker? Wesker, come on. You’ve used up your death quota for today.” Leon shook the man’s shoulders, causing his head to fall to one side, and no more. He pressed his fingers to the gray neck, hunting for the lightest flutter of pulse, and when that failed bent down to put his ear near Wesker’s mouth.

“Don’t tell me you just died from having that fucking thing taken off.”

Wesker was no more responsive to that accusation than the previous.

A twitch beneath his fingers, weak, incredibly weak, but it repeated itself 3 seconds later. A barely-there stir of breath kissed his ear. Wesker was still alive, merely unconscious. Leon drew back, frowning at the still face, the closed eyes. Wesker _looked_ dead.

“Not human,” Leon muttered out loud. “You’re a BOW. What do BOWs do when they’re hurt?”

They died--or pretended to. He’d lost count of the times he’d put a monster down only for it to pop back up later. This might have been Wesker’s version of a healing coma, and as big as that wound was, he might stay out for a long while. Leon relaxed his white-knuckled grip on Wesker’s shoulder. Wesker was not going to die, today.

Leon blew out a long sigh and collapsed at Wesker’s side, groaning in relief. This really wasn’t the way he’d been expecting the two of them to end up in bed again.

The minutes ticked away as he lay there, taking a load off, not thinking about anything, Wesker a lukewarm warmth at his side. They’d done it. They’d made it, against so many odds the craziest bookie wouldn’t have bet on them. They were both free and alive.

So, now what?

He had Wesker here, with him. Wesker was unconscious. No one on earth other than Wesker and himself knew where they were. If he was going to take Wesker in, he would never get a better chance than this.

A black phone sat on the bedside table. He picked up the receiver and stopped, finger hovering above the buttons.

_“If I were ever truly vulnerable, what would you do?”_

_“Turn you in.”_

_Laughter._

_“To who?”_

To who?

Eight years ago, he would have been on the phone with the police already by now. It would have been the ‘right’ thing to do, to call in those responsible for dealing justice and leave it all in their hands. His parents had raised him to respect authority. “Let the boatmen lead the boat,” as his father used to say. It was just the kind of secure, middle-class naivete that Wesker would have laughed himself sick over, and Leon had swallowed it hook, line and sinker. He’d wanted to be a police officer, for god’s sake.

Then Raccoon happened. He’d gotten himself a front row seat for all the rot that festered under that authority. The government had once bought Umbrella’s monsters. The police had been complicit in their horrific experiments, in helping people disappear. The entire city had bent to Umbrella’s whims. These days the government might act like they had changed their tune, but a small hardened part of Leon had never believed that. Being blackmailed into a new job by people implicitly threatening the life of a small child could leave a lasting bad impression like that.

He worked with some good people, for sure, and he hoped the rotten ones weren’t in the majority. Even so, the government as an institution couldn’t be trusted with power like Wesker’s. Who else could he call? The BSAA? Let Chris keep the guy chained up in HQ’s basement for eternity? They couldn’t exactly put a legally dead man on trial for crimes they had no evidence of. Either way, the US government would not look kindly on a UN organization taking Wesker off their soil. Which led straight back to the first problem.

Leon would never have a chance like this again, and he didn’t know what to do. Only one option seemed really guaranteed to take care of the issue, in a way that no one could profit from. Hunk’s suggestion. He put the phone back down, traded it for the gun weighing down his pocket. He’d never had a chance to really look at it back in the lab. It was a small caliber handgun, a custom job, with the STARS emblem molded into the grip.

He knew what Jill would do. He could guess what Chris would do, too. If they just had the right ammunition. The gun’s magazine pulled out smoothly, and inside nestled a row of ordinary 9x19 parabellum cartridges. No green bands, not special anti-BOW rounds. As hurt as Wesker already was, it might not matter. A few plain bullets through the brain might be enough.

Leon slapped the clip back into the gun and huffed to himself, shaking his head. He tossed the gun on to the side table. He knew the best, the smartest option, but that didn’t mean he could bring himself to do it. Slaying monsters was one thing. Shooting a man in cold blood while he slept, a man he....didn’t hate....no. It wasn’t an option at all, not really. Besides, he’d put too much effort into dragging this man to safety.

Which meant he was going to do nothing. He was going to sit here and keep watch until Wesker healed enough that he could go back out and continue terrorizing the world. Some hero he was.

Leon turned his head, studying Wesker’s profile, the hardened features gone soft and relaxed in sleep. Maybe he was looking at all this from the wrong angle. He was thinking of Wesker as a thing to be stopped, a force of destruction as unchangeable a hurricane. Supposing he wasn’t? Suppose Leon could corrupt him, just a little bit. Just enough that he wasn’t such a huge danger to people. Wesker would never be a good man, but maybe Leon could use him for good anyway.

He hadn’t forgotten that warning about HCF having friends in high places. He believed it, too, because he’d already had his suspicions. A person like Wesker was just the kind of ally he’d want against people that powerful. The only question was how to get that help without signing over his soul in the process. It looked like he’d have a while to think about it. Wesker wasn’t going anywhere soon, and neither would he.

Leon picked the phone receiver back up and fiddled with it, rubbing his fingernail over a score in the plastic.

Even if he wasn’t going to turn Wesker in, he still needed to assure his friends and family that he was alright. Just, quietly. The minute the DSO found out he was back, they would swoop in with a lot of questions he wasn’t ready for. He needed to wait until Wesker was out of his hair and he’d gotten his story straight. There were some things--okay, a lot of things--that he didn’t want Simmons to hear about.

So, who to call first? Someone level-headed, who could discretely spread the word and understood the necessity for silence. That immediately nixed both Redfields. Their tempers were legendary, and Claire would be out the door with a grenade launcher the minute she heard the words “kidnapped by Umbrella”. He didn’t have the means to contact Carlos or Ada, and if he had his dates right Rebecca was probably at that symposium.

Barry would work. The man had been solid and reliable for as long as Leon had known him. You didn’t get more level-headed than Barry.

“Hello?” a low, gruff voice answered after three rings.

“Barry, hey. It’s Leon.”

“Leon?” Barry exclaimed. “God, where have you been? Claire was ready to launch a manhunt for you.”

“It’s...a long story,” Leon said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >>Run out of the ski lodge  
>  Stay and fight the monster
> 
> I hope the final confrontation, such as it was, was satisfying enough. Unfortunately both the boys were a little too injured for anything more action-packed. Hmmm, hope skipping that final boss fight doesn’t lead to a bad ending...


	19. C-L is dead. Everything will be OK now.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wesker wakes up and has that shower he's been pining after for several chapters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title inspired by something a friend said while reading Wuthering Heights for the first time XD

Wesker woke to the gentle patter of rain. He was lying on a soft bed in a dim room, a single table lamp bathing the bed in a warm glow. The gun cabinet propped against one wall and the wardrobe against the other clued him in that this space was one of his safe houses. Leon lay beside him, fast asleep on his back with his face turned Wesker’s way.

Slowly, he sat up, never taking his eyes off those boyish features. Leon was still here, with him. And there wasn’t a sign of any of Leon’s allies lying in wait to attack.

Remarkable.

When he had allowed Leon to leave the control room for his “scouting,” he had not been certain Leon would really return for him. He’d let him go anyway, an experiment of sorts to see what he would do. Not only had Leon come back but he had stayed, and no one had come to haul Wesker to a prison while he was unconscious. As easily as Leon formed attachments, Wesker still could not fathom what he had done to earn such compassion. In any case, his experiment had been a success. He just needed to decide what the results meant.

“I’ll figure you out yet,” Wesker promised softly, reaching forward to brush Leon’s bangs back with two fingers.

His smile faded when he recalled the events of their last hour in the facility, and more importantly, all the things he’d said while fatigue and fear impaired his judgment. He’d never intended to tell Leon his life story. He didn’t need pity, not from this man--but pity was not what he had gotten. Leon had briefly been incensed on his younger self’s behalf, and then moved on, simply accepting the story as another piece of the puzzle and slotting it into place.

Drawing back, Wesker sniffed at himself and grimaced. He stank of blood, sweat, and the sickly earthy reek of mold, like he’d spent an afternoon swimming in the flooded basement of a chainsaw-murdering redneck’s crumbling mansion. With great dread, he combed his fingers through his hair, feeling for grime. To his surprise, the locks were soft and smooth to the touch, without any of the gunk he knew had gotten matted in it. He cast a considering eye over at Leon, who slept on, oblivious.

“You’re too much sometimes,” he muttered.

He stood up from the bed and slipped through the warm dark to the bathroom, shedding his ruined clothes as he went. For once he didn’t care about folding them up neatly--the lot of them were destined for a bonfire as soon as he had the means. He closed the bathroom door behind him and clicked the light on, getting his first good look at himself.

His hair hung around his face, soft and untamed, with a slight dent near the back due to the way it had dried. Light streaks of black and red residue striped his skin in wavering lines, the remnants of gunk left behind by the strokes of a damp cloth. He could see the cloth wadded at the bottom of the trash can, and smell it from halfway across the room. Huffing, Wesker turned the shower on as hot as it would go, and shook off the bubble of soft feelings swelling in his chest. Leon had probably just wanted to reduce the smell, that was all. He would have done the same.

Tempting as it was to dump an entire bottle of fungicide over his head, this bathroom had only been stocked with regular soap and shampoo, so he had to content himself with that. As he washed and scrubbed and scrubbed some more, his mind drifted once more to that hazy conversation, and the things he had shared with Leon while dripping his innards out over an office chair.

People always praised such heart to hearts like they were a mental exorcism, removing unwanted negative thoughts. Yet so far this did not seem to be the case. Speaking about his childhood had only made him think about it more.

Survivors. Yes, he had begun his streak of being the last man standing very early in his life. He remembered the day of his siblings’ funeral, standing before the row of neat little holes in the hot summer sun while an endless line of sympathetic faces came to offer condolences to the man responsible for those deaths. As a child, he had not yet perfected the art of resentment. The bitterness he felt towards his guardian had been buried under the shocking mountain of grief. It had all been too much for him to process.

Perhaps that was why he still attempted to go to his guardian for comfort, later, when the sun had set and the mourners gone home, leaving the mansion empty and silent. He remembered entering Mr. Wesker’s study while the man was seated at his desk to ask after some long forgotten concern, and being surprised by the rare sight of the cold, aloof man yelling into a phone.

“--nearly all of them! Those _idiots_ must have made some mistake. All that time and energy _wasted_ \--Oh.” Mr. Wesker had noticed him then, his eyes wide and guilty. “I’ll call you back,” he had said, and hastily hung up.

That small scrap of conversation had meant nothing to him, as a child. As an adult with a full education in Umbrella’s ways, it provoked a lot of questions. His suspicions had only grown when he found out William was sourcing his G virus subjects from a local orphanage. He had never talked about that to anyone, not to Will, or Annie, or even Leon. It was a secret fear he held close to his chest, one he had spent a good amount of his post-Umbrella life trying to vindicate or dispel. The fear that, perhaps, Umbrella had had its hooks in him from the beginning, and the startling success of William’s virus had more to it than Wesker’s genetics and Will’s genius.

If there was anything he would not abide, it was the feeling of being a puppet.

Idly he scrubbed over a stubborn spot on his elbow, barely paying attention to the movements of his own hands. He was remembering that look on his old guardian’s face, that night when they reached their turning point. Mr. Wesker, still so much taller than him back then, had looked down at him with his gaunt features contorted in a strange, uncomfortable grimace Albert had never seen before.

“Albert. Have you been crying again?”

“No!” Albert had protested immediately, with all the offended venom a 9 year old could muster. The small sniffle afterwards had neatly given him away.

Mr. Wesker had sighed and knelt down, putting himself even with Albert’s eyes.

“Albert...” he trailed off, calculating his words. “Listen. You are going to grow up surrounded by death. It is a natural consequence of being as strong a survivor as you are. This world is full of weak people, like your siblings. It is alright to enjoy their company while they are here, but you must not get so attached. You’ll only hurt yourself when the inevitable happens.”

He remembered staring, shaken by his guardian’s gentle certainty that this--this was going to happen again.

“It’s late,” Mr. Wesker had said, glancing at the clock. “You should be in bed.”

Albert had looked at the floor and said nothing.

“I suppose you can’t sleep?” Mr. Wesker had sighed, running a hand through his hair--a habit that Albert had always found deplorable. He was grimacing in that odd way again. Albert had braced himself for an order to go back to bed, topped off with a lecture about the importance of rest for good brain function. For the first time, his guardian would surprise him.

“I suppose we might as well make use of the time. Go get your anatomy book. We can spend a few hours discussing the limbic system.”

Albert had fallen asleep somewhere in the middle of the chapter on the hypothalamus, and for once, Mr. Wesker hadn’t punished him for it. Perhaps because he had lost all the other children, perhaps because Albert and Alex were all he had left, Mr. Wesker had stopped being quite so cold and distant after that day. Instead he had swung to the other extreme, becoming almost smothering in his attention and concern over their health. He fretted over Alex most of all, protective to the point of paranoia, right up until the day when she was formally adopted by Lord Oswell Spencer himself.

The water was getting cold. Wesker shut the shower off, breathing deeply as water dripped down the sharp lines of his face.

At least one of his guardian’s predictions had come true: Albert Wesker was surrounded by death. Over and over again, either through his own design or by the weakness of other men, Wesker would find himself standing alone after the dust cleared, one of a handful of survivors. He was not alone in this fate. Perhaps that was part of what drew him to Leon. Hunk, too, always outlived his teams. And the Redfields--Wesker had convinced himself that they managed through pure luck.

It remained to be seen whether Hunk had survived this latest adventure. Now if only he could arrange a similar downfall for Chris...

He toweled off with a smile, running possible scenarios through his head. Sadly, Leon couldn’t be expected to perform as nicely as he had against Hunk. Which reminded him, Leon had not only acquired a gun from somewhere, but he had fired it, despite all of Wesker’s warnings. He needed to check on that incision and see how badly Leon had set back his own healing.

The gun in question sat on the table at Leon’s side, lying innocuously next to the phone. When Wesker recognized it, he snatched it up at once for inspection. His samurai edge. He’d thought he’d lost the one-of-a-kind weapon back when C-L had killed his team. Leon must have found it along with the radio and just chosen not to mention it. So this was the gun that had killed Hunk. It was almost poetic. He set the firearm back down, quietly approving its position close at hand. No one should be able to find them here, but it paid to be cautious.

Leon slumbered on, dead to the world. At some point he had traded lab coat and surgical gown for a pair of slacks and a silk button up shirt which Wesker recognized as his own. The agent must have found the cache of spare clothing Wesker had left here. Leon looked good in his clothes, even if they were a little loose across the chest and hips. Black suited him.

The unbuttoned shirt hung open, black silk pooling on either side of his chest in startling contrast to the pristine white bandages wrapped around his middle. Wesker sat on the bed beside him and bent down for a closer look at the bandaging job. They looked fresh, somewhat awkwardly wrapped but not amateur. Someone had taught Leon well. As if disturbed by the scrutiny, Leon began to stir.

“Hi,” he mumbled, sleepily surprised to find Wesker looming over him.

“Hello.”

“Was wondering when you’d wake up. The wound closed yesterday.”

“How long has it been?”

“Four days.”

Twice as long as he’d ever needed to fully recover in the past.

“And I trust you weren’t stupid enough to see a doctor about this?” he gently tapped the side of the bandage.

“Stupid enough?” Leon echoed, confused. “No, I haven’t been out.”

Which meant he had been keeping vigil the whole while. Wesker stroked a hand up and down Leon’s side, re-calibrating plans. His timetable for HCF would need to be moved up. Already one of their scientists was leaking secrets, conspiring with Spencer’s lapdogs of all people. As annoying as it would be, he may have to find another company to mine for resources to complete his projects. Leon would figure into his plans somehow, with some adjusting. He had many new factors to consider now. The more time they spent in each other’s company, the more...intolerable he found the idea of leaving him behind. Wesker glanced at the wall clock.

“We should visit the hospital in a few hours.”

Leon, too, looked at the clock. It read 9:30 pm.

“The hospital will be closed by then.”

“Yes. Did you think we would waltz in through the front door? You must realize, the DSO thinks you’ve gone AWOL. The minute you pop up on the grid, they will find you.”

“You...want to break in to a hospital?”

“I have a lot of specialized equipment hidden here, but I do not have a CT scanner. As that’s the best way to tell if you’ve ruptured something with all your reckless stunts, we shall have to acquire access to one discreetly.”

Leon shook his head, his expression a cross between disapproval and wonder.

“You’re worrying about me again,” he said. “It’s cute.”

Cute? _Cute_? He was being _practical_ and showing a due amount of consideration over the welfare of a valuable asset. It was not cute. The face he was making in response must have been quite the spectacle, because Leon almost choked on laughter.

“Don’t make me laugh,” he pleaded, throwing one arm over his eyes.

Wesker blew out an exasperated sigh that made his opinion on this ridiculous behavior quite clear, pulled Leon’s arm out of the way, and bent down to kiss him soundly. Leon soon forgot his amusement, responding with such enthusiasm that Wesker had to pin him to the mattress by one shoulder as a firm reminder not to attempt sitting up. At least it shut him up.

"You are atrocious at styling hair," Wesker panted once he had broken away.

Leon looked flummoxed, both by the sudden kiss and the accusation.

"Wha--hey. I am not." He flipped his long bangs back, as if that was proof of anything. "You were unconscious and lying down, I did my best."

Wesker huffed and kissed him again, slower this time, savoring.

“You’re wet,” Leon complained once he had his mouth free. “I take it you’re feeling better?”

“Yes. My body has finished repairing itself.”

“I’m starting to feel a little jealous.”

Wesker felt several soft pokes into the new flesh of his side and shied sideways to escape them. Leon laid his palm flat on the warm skin, soothing over the flesh in apology.

“You were practically torn in half, and it only took you half a week to heal. Meanwhile, I’m lying here with a tiny cut through my stomach, and I won’t be able to climb stairs for another four weeks.”

“You’ve been researching,” Wesker said, approving. “It is a sad state, the frailty of the human body. If you pretended not to be jealous, I’d call you a liar.” He jerked sideways at another sharp jab to his side. “Stop that!”

“Just checking,” Leon said, the picture of innocence. “How do you know everything’s in the right place?”

Wesker moved off Leon, purely because he had tired of the position and not out of any need to escape those mischievous fingers.

“I’ve never had difficulties before,” he said. “This isn’t the first time I’ve grown back a large portion of my abdomen.”

Leon hummed.

“Maybe if you stopped pissing off your boyfriends you wouldn’t get stabbed so often,” he said.

Apparently Leon had recovered enough for his bizarre sense of humor to be back online.

“Have you had a look at your incision?” Wesker asked.

“Yeah. It looked a little angry the first day. The red’s all died down now. I don’t think it got infected.”

“Unbelievably lucky,” Wesker said. “I’ll run a blood test later just to make sure.”

Silence descended, as Leon finished waking himself up and Wesker debated whether to address the elephant in the room. Leon had not attempted to turn him in. He was still here. Why? He almost asked him directly, his mouth opened with the question on his tongue, but at the last moment he switched course.

“I see you found my handgun.”

“Hm? Oh. Yeah.” Leon rolled to his side and picked the gun up. He studied the emblem on the handle, keeping the muzzle safely pointed at the floor. “Is this what I think it is?”

“My samurai edge, yes.”

“I can’t believe you still have it.”

“Why not? It’s one of a kind. Custom made to my exact specifications by a master gunsmith. Sadly, he no longer takes commissions.”

“He died in Raccoon.”

“Yes.”

“Just seems to me you have a lot of souvenirs from STARS. What underwear were you wearing?”

“Black,” Wesker growled. Leon was never going to let him live that incident down.

Leon continued his study of the handgun, lips quirking in an impish smile.

“Sure you don’t miss them?” he asked.

Wesker did, sometimes, not that he would ever admit it. There was nothing quite like having your own little private army of hand-picked best of the best answering your every beck and call. Unfortunately, the Arklay outbreak had forced him to speed up his plans, and so their destruction had been required. They had been a worthy sacrifice for his ascension.

“Jill let me use her samurai edge, once,” Leon went on. He gently placed the gun back on the table. “I fell in love with it so much, I brought it in to Joe to ask if he could replicate his brother’s work.”

“Joe Kendo?”

“Yeah.”

“So he’s still working in the family business.”

“He told me he could do it, but he wanted to make me something original instead. Something better. And he did. That handgun was a work of art.”

“What did it look like?”

“Black, with some wood accents along the grip, and a rounded silver slide. We called it the Silver Ghost.”

Wesker got up and went to his discarded clothing, hunting through pouches and pockets until he located the handgun he had taken from the second caretaker. This he presented to Leon, whose eyes lit up like Christmas bulbs at the sight of it.

“That’s it! Where did you find it?”

“One of the security staff was using it.” Now he understood why it had felt familiar. He had seen Leon using it in the Spain footage.

“What are the odds? We both rescued each other’s guns.”

More than just that.

Wesker turned the gun over in his hands, taking greater care in his examination now that he had the time.

“Silver Ghost, you said? Interesting name. What inspired it?”

Leon ducked his head, suddenly sheepish.

“You’ll probably think it’s stupidly sentimental.”

“Come now. I told you my orphan sob story. The least you could do is explain the name of your weapon. Is it named after some cheesy superhero?”

“It’s because...I feel like a ghost. Ever since Raccoon. It’s like I left the real world behind that night, and I’ve been wandering somewhere gray and foggy ever since. I can see the normal world sometimes, I can even touch it, but I can’t live in it anymore.”

Wesker studied him over the slide of the gun.

“I believe that’s what they call PTSD,” he said after a lengthy silence.

“Maybe.” Leon shrugged.

“What is this little design on the grip?”

“That’s, heh. It’s a skull. I designed that.” He cleared his throat. “Too on the nose?”

Wesker squinted at the emblem again, trying to find a skull in it. He could almost see it, if he tilted his head just so. He could also see a bird flying over a turtle, or some kind of tree.

“Don’t quit your day job,” he said.

“Ouch.”

Wesker twirled the gun once and held it out to him.

“Do you think that if you manage to kill all the monsters in your gray, foggy world, you’ll be able to return to the normal one?”

“That’s the dream,” Leon replied, taking the gun back. “But it seems there’s no end of monsters in this world.”

Wesker hummed thoughtfully. He had always considered the ‘normal’ world overrated. Perhaps that was to be expected. After all, he was one of the monsters.

“I keep looking for darkness in you,” Wesker said, “because no human can be as totally good as you pretend to be. Yet even when I find it, it surprises me.”

“I’m choosing to take that as a compliment.”

Thunder grumbled outside, stealing Leon’s attention for a moment. Wesker let his eyes fall back to the gun Leon held, thinking about the guard he had stolen it from, the lab that had been so ready to drop everything and shift gears the moment Leon had been captured, and the curious timing of the attack that had started everything. So many pieces didn’t quite fit together. It was clear to him now that Umbrella had been searching for Leon, coveting the plaga remains within him. Once again he had to wonder, had Leon’s capture been an attack of opportunity, or had they somehow known where to find him?

“That informant of yours. The one who led you to my lab,” Wesker threw out, conversational-like.

Leon rolled his eyes, looking thoroughly disgusted.

“You’re going to get back on that now? Can we forget about work for 2 minutes and just enjoy the fact we’re alive?”

“Dr. Ingram Ferris.”

Leon did not react to the name; he’d been better trained than that. His fatigue led to hesitation, which gave him away just as neatly.

“Am I supposed to know who that is?” Leon turned and set his gun down on the side table next to Wesker’s. “Are you planning to put clothes on, or were you going to lounge around naked all evening?”

“Am I distracting you?” Wesker smirked. It occurred to him for the first time how carefully Leon had been looking at only his chest and face the whole time. How gentlemanly of him.

“I’m not complaining,” Leon said quickly. “It’d be a real shock for the night staff at the hospital, that’s all.”

“No, but you are trying to dodge a question.”

“I told you, I don’t know him.”

“Perhaps he came to you with some sob story about wanting out, being forced to commit horrific experiments, etc?”

No response. Leon met his eyes steadily, utterly blank-faced.

“It’s convenient, isn’t it, that your tip-off lured you right to my Oregon lab, mere hours before Umbrella was due to attack? Those men were hunting for you. An odd place for them to look, wouldn’t you agree? Your address is on the other side of the country.”

He’d hooked him. He could tell, through Leon’s show of disgruntlement, that the other man was thinking. Leon looked away, the movement making his hair sway pendulum-like in front of his eye.

“You think I was set up?”

“I’m positive. I don’t believe in coincidence, Leon. Not where Umbrella’s involved.”

“And where’d you get that name from?”

“He does not work under me, whatever he told you,” Wesker said. “He runs his own research lab quite a distance away. As a matter of fact, he is the project leader responsible for the creation of C-L. That specimen was HCF property. It had been in storage for some time. I have reason to believe he sold it to Spencer, hoping none of us would notice.”

Bleak and angry, Leon stared through the wall.

“They found out, somehow, that you were still carrying a plaga, and saw an opportunity to maneuver two birds into position for a single stone throw,” Wesker concluded.

“That wouldn’t have been hard,” Leon muttered. “It was in my report.”

“No it isn’t.”

“What?” Leon looked up.

“I have read through all of your files, including the ones which are not open to the public. I’ve read your report on the Spain incident. There was never any mention of your plaga infection.”

“All of them, huh? I don’t know if I should be flattered or creeped out.”

“You were a factor in Spain. I had time to do some homework while I was waiting for Ada to complete her objectives. After Spain, it seemed prudent to read your own account of events.”

“What about...” Leon caught himself, pulled his lip in between his teeth briefly and rephrased. “Was there any mention of other infected survivors?”

“Are you referring to Krauser, or someone else?”

“That’s a no,” Leon said.

Wesker ticked through the short list of people who had escaped the incident in Spain, and could think of only one who Leon would be so protective over.

“Ashley was infected as well, wasn’t she?”

“That was their whole plan, kidnap the president’s daughter, infect her, send her home. Let her spread the little monsters to the whole white house. That--it’s not in the report?”

“The plan is mentioned. The report makes it sound like you were able to intervene before the egg could be implanted.”

“Who could have scrubbed that report? Who would want to?” Leon asked, more to himself than to Wesker.

“The list of potential culprits is quite short, don’t you agree? Who would have the skills to do so, as well as the desire to protect you? I can’t imagine your bosses in the DSO would have such concerns.”

“Ada?”

Wesker shrugged. When one had removed the impossible, it did seem the most likely answer.

“Perhaps she foresaw just this turn of events. She has always been overly sentimental where you’re concerned.”

“I never even knew...” Leon trailed off. “And after all that, Umbrella got me anyway.”

“Almost. Unfortunately for them, they underestimated us.”

“Bet Dr. Ferris didn’t know we had an arrangement.”

“Dr. Ferris will be dealt with.”

“That supposed to make me feel better?” Leon asked.

“It will make _me_ feel better,” Wesker growled. Leon seemed taken aback by his sudden vehemence.

“Ashley will be in danger too,” Leon said. “If they found out about my plaga, they might know about hers.”

“Perhaps. Either way, there is time. Spencer’s people will need time to regroup and lick their wounds after the loss of that lab.”

“God, if we’d just had the things taken out to start with, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Deep abdominal surgeries have their risks,” Wesker offered, placating. “Especially when the object lies so close to the spine.”

“I guess all I can do is warn her. It’s up to her if she wants to get the problem taken care of permanently or not.”

“Ashley has far more security at her disposal than you do, Leon. There’s a reason Umbrella targeted you first.”

“It didn’t help her before,” Leon grumbled. He looked up, his eyes suddenly intense. Abruptly, Wesker had 5’10” of annoyed government agent in his face, close enough for either a punch or a kiss. He couldn’t tell exactly which one Leon was spoiling for. “Krauser said you two were dreaming about reviving Umbrella. Some cock and bull about bringing back ‘order and balance’ to this world. But you’re not on Spencer’s team.”

“Spencer’s goals and my own are completely opposite, I assure you.”

“You know what his goal is?”

“I have guesses. Nothing definite. The fact he’s looking into a creature like the plagas is a new and troubling development.”

“What’s your guess, then?”

“Information is a valuable commodity. Contrary, perhaps, to what impression you’ve formed of me, I do not pass it out freely to just anyone.”

“You could just say ‘I won’t tell you for free.’ Takes a lot less words.”

“Spencer’s leftovers--and, to an extent, HCF--are both destabilizing elements that I would see removed. That’s a goal we can agree on, isn’t it?” He bent closer. “Have you rethought your position on working together?”

Predictably, Leon scoffed and turned half away from him.

“You’re so sure you and Spencer want different things? For all I know, your ultimate goal is just as bad. No one knows what you’re planning. You wanted the plagas, too.”

“I’m not asking you to adopt my goals.” He wrapped his fingers around Leon’s chin and gently tugged it to face him. “Only for you to stand by me for as long as our interests align. That’s all I ask of any of my agents.”

“And as soon as they stop aligning, you dump their body in a ditch somewhere, right?”

Like he would waste a perfectly good body like that.

“You would not go so easily,” Wesker said. “You have that in common with Ada.”

Calloused fingers wrapped around Wesker’s wrist, pulled it down. They did not let go. Wesker allowed the motion, too absorbed in watching the thoughts swirl behind Leon’s eyes to care.

“Why do you really want me so badly? You want agents, you’ve got dozens of them. You want someone who’ll live through the job, you’ve got Ada.”

“Perhaps I’m in the market for a one-man army. Those are rather thin on the ground, unfortunately.”

“Maybe,” Leon allowed. “Or maybe you want just one guy in your corner who won’t leap for your throat the second you stumble.”

Those eyes seemed to see right through him. It was a new and uncomfortable sensation, being seen. Wesker always preferred being too mysterious for anyone to understand. His arm twitched backwards, tugging against Leon’s hold. Leon let him go.

“I’ve got a counter proposal,” Leon said. “C’mere.”

Suspicious, Wesker narrowed his eyes. Leon waited him out, eternally patient, until Wesker gave in to curiosity and leaned forward. Leon met him halfway, locked with him in another kiss that was a hair too soft for Wesker’s liking. He brought his hands up, pressing Leon closer by his shoulder blades while Leon tangled his arms about Wesker’s neck.

“I’m tired,” Leon said when they separated. “I’m sore. I’m still recovering from everything we just lived through. Maybe your wound is closed, but you’re still recovering, too.” His fingers toyed with the short hairs at the back of Wesker’s neck, combing and tugging. “Let’s make an agreement. No more work talk as long as we’re here resting. Ok?”

“I suppose you have a point. Very well. I agree.”

His stomach chose that moment to grumble loudly in complaint. His body would need a lot of calories to replenish everything he had spent healing.

“...and I should eat something,” Wesker added, rueful. “Are you hungry?”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? I’m not a doctor, but, you did just grow back your entire intestinal track.”

“My appetite has returned. That means my system is ready.” With some reluctance, he disengaged himself from Leon’s arms and crossed to the wardrobe to fetch some fresh clothing.

“I guess you’d know best,” Leon said. He still looked skeptical. “Yeah, I could go for something. Can you cook?”

“Well enough. I don’t usually have the time.”

“Good, because I’m getting sick of eating peas out of the can.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you know that Leon’s starter gun in RE 4 had a name and a backstory? I didn’t! I found out about it while randomly browsing a fan wiki, apparently it’s talked about in a little short story in some Japan-only gun magazine or something like that. As soon as I read about it I had to include it. I always find it interesting when canon gives a nod to all the PTSD their characters are bound to have by this point.


	20. In Which Leon Does Not Have a Medical Kink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leon and Wesker break into a hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to describe the CT scanner in detail because I’d never seen one before and most media representation seems to go to MRI machines, which are a bit different. Also I bothered to do the research so I wanted to do something with it XD

“I can’t believe you convinced me to break into a hospital,” Leon grumbled out the side of his mouth as the two made their way along the dark, empty corridors of Rosewood General. The hospital at night looked all too similar to the desolate lab they had escaped, and it was giving Leon hives.

“You weren’t hard to persuade,” came Wesker’s reply. “In here. We’ll do a CT scan.”

“Not an MRI?”

“They take too long. The sooner we finish our business, the better.”

“I’m not complaining,” Leon replied as he got a good look at the scanner. He’d heard of CT scans, but had never had one done. The machine looked a lot less claustrophobic, to start with. It consisted of one large, bulky plastic ring, with a long padded table attached to it. At Wesker’s direction, Leon hopped up on the table and lay down. The pad had two smooth plastic wedges attached, one to lean his back against, the other to prop his knees up.

“You’ll want your arms up over your head, so they’re out of the way,” Wesker instructed. He pressed a button on the side of the machine, which fed the table through the ring, stopping when Leon’s abdomen was set in the center.

“Shall I need to strap you down?” Wesker asked cheekily while Leon readjusted himself on the pad.

“Keep dreaming,” Leon muttered.

Wesker smirked.

“Try not to move until I tell you.”

As Wesker vanished into the adjoining booth to work the controls, Leon considered, not for the first time, what a great exercise in trust the entire medical industry was. You had to believe in the competence and good will of your doctors and specialists, to care for the most valuable and irreplaceable thing every human had: their own body. Some people still abused that trust, treating their patients as annoyances or even lab rats. Umbrella had only been one of them. Wesker had told him about C-L’s background while he devoured every can of protein and half the carbs from the safehouse’s pantry. C-L had thought he was volunteering for experimental treatment, only to find himself turned into a living nightmare. Lord knew how many other isolated, vulnerable people fell into similar traps by other predatory corporations. He wished he could do more to prevent these kinds of tragedies, instead of always being called in after the shit hit the fan and everything human in those victims had already rotted away.

The scanner hummed to life around him, its hidden innards working with rising speed to a buzzing crescendo that gave Leon new sympathy for what clothes in a drier felt like. Time and absence had not made Leon any fonder of getting scans taken. At least this was more bearable than the bone-hammering knocking of the MRI machine, but only just. The bed began to move itself, sliding him to different positions while the machine took its pictures. Leon lay still and hoped that none of the hospital staff were close enough to hear this thing working when it shouldn’t be.

After a few minutes, the bed stopped moving, and the humming died down.

“Remarkable,” Wesker said. “After all those reckless stunts, you managed not to tear anything.”

Thank god. He wouldn’t need additional surgery. That was especially good news given that with his current AWOL status, he couldn’t exactly waltz up to a doctor and ask to have his insides stitched back up. Unless Wesker was somehow qualified for that operation, which Leon doubted, he’d be in a lot of trouble.

“No bleeding?”

“None at all. You can move now, Leon.”

Wesker came back and moved the bed back to its starting position so Leon could get up.

“I’ll still want a blood test to make sure there’s nothing in there that shouldn’t be.”

“Is that all you want it for?” Leon asked, skeptical. He wondered if he could trust Wesker to tell him if he was infected. He wondered if Wesker might pretend to see an infection that didn’t exist, to make him scared and desperate.

“As fascinating a person as you are, I have better things to do than study your blood. I’m afraid your genetics are painfully boring, as far as viral interactions go.”

“You say that like you’ve looked at my blood before,” Leon said, suspicious.

Wesker’s responding smirk was an answer in and of itself.

“You’ve looked at my blood before,” Leon concluded.

“I was curious. You’ve lived through a lot of outbreaks, and genius can only get you so far. You may be pleased to hear you have a light resistance to the majority of T-family viruses. It takes a higher viral load than normal to overwhelm your system.”

“You analyze my blood. You hack into my personnel files,” Leon said. “I’m feeling a little violated over here.”

“There’s no need to be embarrassed. Your record is exceptional,” Wesker said, in a tone caught halfway between mocking and reassuring. “If you wish to level the playing field, I suggest you hire a good hacker.”

That wasn’t the point, but whatever. Privacy violations were the least of Wesker’s numerous ethical failings. Leon was learning when to pick his battles.

While they’d been talking, Wesker had busied himself with the contents of a tray on the counter. Now he approached with a syringe in hand. Almost by reflex, Leon held a hand up and grunted “uh-uh.”

“Leon...” Wesker began, exasperated.

“Let me see that first,” he said.

Wesker--still bereft of shades, as surprisingly he had not stocked extras in the safehouse--rolled his eyes. He held the syringe out without comment, allowing Leon to inspect it for himself and confirm that its belly was empty. Appeased, he nodded for Wesker to continue.

“I don’t know what you were expecting. Still so untrusting,” Wesker tsked, taking Leon’s arm in his hands. He rolled the sleeve up and strapped an elastic tourniquet around Leon’s bicep.

“Would you respect me otherwise?” Leon asked.

Wesker’s lips twitched. He did not respond.

As far as nurses went, Wesker was brisk and efficient. He found a vein easily and drew two vials of blood--for different tests, he said.

“Was that so bad?” He asked afterward, the vials tucked safely into his pocket.

“Lucky for you, I’m not afraid of needles.” Leon slid off the bed and stood up. “We scanning you next?”

Wesker stalled at the suggestion, as if it had not occurred to him.

“Me?”

“Yeah. You don’t want to make sure everything grew back in the right place?”

“Now who is fussing?” Wesker asked. “Don’t worry. I would have felt something by now if anything were wrong.”

“If you say so.”

The wound may have closed, but Leon suspected the damage wasn’t as healed as Wesker was pretending. He’d spent much of the past 4 days idly reading through the safehouse’s stash of medical books. The surface of a wound healed fastest, he’d learned, but the underlying tissue could take much longer to fully recover. Maybe someone of Wesker’s abilities wouldn’t take the months or years to heal that a normal person would, but he had doubts that the man was back up to 100% after only 4 days.

“We’d best hurry along before we’re discovered,” Wesker said. “Getting spotted would raise all kinds of uncomfortable questions, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Leon huffed. He poked his head out into the hallway, checking that the coast was clear.

“This way. We’ll stop in one of the treatment rooms so I can make sure your incision is properly disinfected.”

Leon followed the direction with bemused resignation, still floating on the surrealism of the whole situation. He wondered how many people had ever gotten to see Wesker like this, acting, for lack of a better word, like a mother hen. His deceased friend William Birkin, maybe? The STARS team members? If only he’d had the nerve, he might have asked some of the survivors about it.

He’d tried to insist several times that he had been looking after his own wound, but apparently Wesker did not believe him. They settled in an unoccupied room, where Leon perched on the edge of the examination table while Wesker rifled through the cabinets for bandages and disinfectant.

“Your doctorate’s in virology, right?” Leon said. “Are you really qualified for a medical exam?”

“More qualified than you,” Wesker replied. “You’d be amazed how cross-disciplinary BOW development is.” Wesker set his supplies down on a wheeled tray and got right down to business.

Without so much as a how-you-do, Wesker bent down and started undoing the buttons on Leon’s shirt. Leon’s hands were working just fine and he could have done that himself, as he would have pointed out if every brush of those knuckles against his bare chest hadn’t sent little sparks of excitement through him. Leon bit his lower lip and kept his stare carefully riveted on the wall just behind Wesker’s shoulder. It wasn’t fair. Wesker had done first aid on him loads of times, why did the same motions feel so charged now? Had it really been that long, was he so lonely that he could get hot and bothered just over Wesker sliding Leon’s shirt off his shoulders?

“Lift your arms out of the way,” Wesker directed, his warm hand pressed to Leon’s side.

Apparently so. Leon swallowed thickly and tried to think professional thoughts, focusing his gaze on his own belly as layer after layer of bandages were unwound from his middle. The sting from Wesker gently peeling his skin away from the old bandage helped clear his head a little. Wesker, not noticing his patient’s plight, got up to toss the old bandage into a biohazardous waste container and then washed his hands again.

The incision looked just as ugly as the last time Leon had looked at it: about 3 inches of jagged red line cutting a path from the top of his belly button to just below his rib cage. The Umbrella scientists had chosen staples instead of stitches to hold the wound shut, though Wesker had told him a cut this deep would also have internal stitches keeping everything inside together.

“You’ve definitely strained the incision more than you should have,” Wesker said when he came back. He had bent down close and had angled his head for a better look at the wound.

Leon bristled at the tone of minor disapproval. It wasn’t like he’d had much _choice._

“Minor dehiscence, though I would have been shocked if there weren’t any. Lucky for you, the tearing is minimal. All you’ve managed to do is set your healing back a few days. These staples were almost ready to come out, I think.”

“Lucky me. It’s pretty unsettling, waking up to two weeks lost time and a big ugly wound I don’t remember getting.”

“It could be worse,” Wesker offered as he dipped a towel in a dish of soapy water. “You could have woken up in a bathtub full of ice with a kidney missing.”

“No, Umbrella lab is definitely the worst possible option.”

“You can lie all the way back, now.”

Leon lowered himself with care, the paper on the exam table crinkling under his back. He watched those careful hands wash the broken skin and its staples, knowing deep in his core that something--something had changed, but he could not put his finger on what. Wesker went on cleaning and disinfecting the incision, oblivious to the turmoil in Leon’s thoughts.

“Have you been taking painkillers?”

“Just aspirin,” he replied. “Lots and lots of aspirin.”

“Perhaps we should get some vicodin while we’re here.”

“I don’t need it,” Leon replied quickly. The pain had been fairly manageable, and he really didn’t want to add drug theft to his list of felonies tonight.

“If you insist.”

The whole bandage-changing process didn’t hurt nearly as much as it had when Leon did it himself. Perhaps because Wesker knew what he was doing, perhaps because he could get a better angle than Leon. Wesker also stopped to wash his hands after nearly every step, which Leon noted for future reference.

It was the gentleness, he decided, the extreme care Wesker took with handling Leon’s vulnerable flesh, and the laser-focused intent with which he performed his work. Wesker might have patched him up in the past, but he had never seen the man so determined to deliver care instead of death. Or, possibly, Leon was just so hard up that the mere act of Wesker looming over him while he was shirtless was enough to get his engine running. One of the two.

“Up. I need to apply the new bandage,” Wesker commanded.

Leon levered himself up with care and held still while Wesker wound fresh bandages around his waist. The process felt just as inappropriately erotic as taking his shirt off had been, and he was starting to get mad at his own libido.

“Your pulse is abnormally high.” Wesker purred near his ear.

“How can you tell that?”

“I can hear it. Like a little drum hidden under your ribs.” He tapped Leon’s chest with two fingers, looking Leon directly in the eye. “Not nervous, are we?”

“Nervous? Me?” He huffed a little laugh. “Nah. Just...getting distracted.” He let his eyes fall to the corded muscles of Wesker’s bare forearms, then dragged them deliberately up Wesker’s body to his face.

“Developed a medical kink, have we?” Wesker teased.

“God no.” The thought made him recoil. He had seen too much horrible mad science shit to associate doctors with anything erotic. “Just a fan of you taking my clothes off. I guess you could call it an undressing kink.”

“I don’t think that counts as a kink.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not unrelated to the act of sex, it’s a necessary preparation step. If anything it counts as foreplay.”

“Aren’t all kinks foreplay?”

Wesker blinked twice and shook his head, clearly unable to refute the point. If Leon were the sort to keep score, he would have added a point to his mental tally for times he’d rendered Wesker speechless.

“We done here, or did you want to test anything else? Maybe take my height and weight? Check my tonsils?” Leon asked.

“I suppose there’d be no point to checking your blood pressure.” Wesker smirked. “You’re too hot and bothered for a good reading.”

“Can you really blame me? Do you realize how many times we’ve been interrupted in the past 6 months? Every time we get a moment together, I have to run off on a mission or another Umbrella goon squad bursts in through the windows. A guy can only take so many rain checks, you know.”

“It has been very frustrating,” Wesker agreed.

Leon looked over Wesker, at the broad shoulders and lovely sharp cheekbones, his softer than normal hair dangling about his ears, and thought to himself that frustration was not a strong enough word. Well, what the hell. They had agreed to pure R&R while they recovered, what could be more relaxing than a good fuck?

“Umbrella’s not going to find us here, though,” he said.

“If they did, I’d be so impressed I might go with them willingly.” Wesker snorted.

“So...” he angled his head, looking up seductively through the fall of his hair, “you wanna cash in one of those rain checks?”

Wesker looked tempted. Very, very tempted, if the way his eyes slowly ticked down to take in Leon’s bare torso said anything. But his gaze fixed on Leon’s new bandages, and his mouth twitched down into a hard slash, torn.

“That’s not a good idea,” he said, to himself as much as Leon.

“It’s fine. I’m fine. If we just go slow enough--”

“We just scanned to make sure your stitches are in tact, and now you want to strain them again?”

“I’ll let you top,” Leon blurted out. He wanted Wesker to top, he realized, sitting here now with Wesker looming over him. The dread he used to feel at Wesker having any position of power over him had faded enough for the idea to be really, really exciting.

Wesker stared at him with the universal expression of a man struggling to think while the blood rushed to the wrong head. He opened his mouth but then stopped, apparently distracted by some noise which Leon couldn’t hear. In moments he had dashed to the switch by the door and killed the lights. Leon, catching on, remained silent.

Footsteps passed by through the hall outside, accompanied by cheerful off-key whistling. Presently they faded into the distance. Wesker turned the light back on. The two met eyes, the tension between them no less electric for the distance.

“No bad pick-up lines for me this time?” he asked.

“There’s no winning with you,” Leon said. “I make jokes, you complain. I don’t make jokes, you complain.”

“Hmph. If you can contain yourself until we get back to the condo,” Wesker said, “I’ll consider your proposal.”

Leon beamed at him, beatific.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little on the short side--I wasn’t actually planning for this to be a chapter until my beta reader said she really wanted to see them break into a hospital. Next update will have that long awaited increase in the fic rating!


	21. In Which Two Horny Idiots Have Ill-Advised Sex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is pure smut. Skip to the end if you just want the resolution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously do not do this at home. In fact, if you’re ever recovering from surgery, do not do any of the things Leon has done in this fic. Doing research for this has taught me a lot about how horrifyingly fragile surgical incisions are, especially in the abdomen/chest area. You can pop stitches by sNEEZING

The click of the condo door closing behind them had a certain finality to it, the resonant tone of a world being locked outside. He often felt this way, when alone with Leon on one of their trysts, that the two of them had stepped into a different world together. There was a surreal quality to fucking an enemy on a regular basis. Wesker stood with one palm pressed flat against the door while he contemplated the man who was all but vibrating in front of him.

“You’re sure about this?” he asked one more time. “I can do my best not to damage you, but there is still a risk.”

Leon closed the gap between them and wound his arms around Wesker’s waist, hands smoothing up Wesker’s back.

“I am so sick and tired of Umbrella cockblocking me,” he said. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

“Can’t wait until you don’t have a hole in your body tied together with string? Gracious me, Mr. Kennedy.”

“Reckless is my middle name.”

“I don’t recall reckless starting with an ‘s’.”

He bent down for a kiss, pressing the agent closer to him with a hand at the back of his neck. Wesker had spent a good portion of the trip back debating whether he should let Leon have sex in this condition. By nature he was a selfish person, but he was also a calculating one, never known to seek instant gratification when waiting for something was more profitable. Eventually, he had stopped kidding himself. He was just as frustrated as Leon, and who knew when they would have this opportunity again?

They parted long enough for him to unfasten Leon’s buttons for the second time that night. It was considerably harder than before, with the added distraction of Leon mouthing at his neck while he worked. Once the buttons were out of his way Wesker spread the shirt, running admiring fingers over the bared chest, carefully avoiding the bandage.

“I find it ironic that you suddenly trust me now, of all times.”

“’Trust’ is a strong word. A little butterfly assured me that you’ve never accidentally crushed the pelvis of any of your partners.”

“That was your issue?” Wesker could not keep the laughter out of his voice, and Leon looked cross about it.

“It’s a legitimate concern,” Leon insisted hotly.

“Someone has been reading too many Superman thinkpieces. I can control my strength.” He planted a trail of lingering kisses up the agent’s neck to his ear. “Let me prove it to you.”

He tugged Leon towards the bedroom, a silent directive which the agent answered all too willingly. They tangled up a few times on the way, too eager for each other to part mouths for long, clothing coming undone at the behest of greedy fingers.

Naked but for his bandages, Leon perched on the edge of the bed, eyes dilated and lips swollen, watching in disbelief as Wesker took a moment to gather up the discarded clothing and hang it neatly on a chair.

“I can’t believe you sometimes,” he said.

“These are the only clothes we have, and we don’t know how long we’ll be staying here,” Wesker insisted. He did honestly dread whatever the inside of Leon’s home must look like, if he showed such disdain over simple acts of neatness.

“I knew what I was in for,” Leon reflected somewhat morosely.

“Whining will not make me move any faster,” Wesker told him. He crouched beside the little pile of his discarded gear which had been shoved in one corner. From one of the surviving pouches on his vest he pulled out the necessary accessories before returning to Leon, who looked surprised.

“I thought you said you _didn’t_ carry condoms and lube with you on missions?”

“That was before we started meeting so often at work.”

“Wow. I don’t know if that’s presumptuous or clever.”

“Let’s go with clever,” Wesker recommended. “If you feel any pressure or pain around your abdomen, tell me and we’ll stop immediately.”

“Got it, Nurse Wesker.”

“Doctor, thank you. I didn’t go to all the trouble of getting you out of that facility just for you to die from a hernia.”

Leon’s smile softened. “I’ll be fine. I’m a pretty tough guy.”

Heaven spare him from soldiers who thought a few pounds of muscle would protect them from internal bleeding. He thought he’d left all that behind with S.T.A.R.S.

“I’m going to need you to be absolutely relaxed and pliant,” he ordered in a low rumble, one hand cupping Leon’s neck, “we don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“Relaxed and pliant,” Leon repeated skeptically.

“Or it’s not happening at all,” Wesker said firmly.

“No, no, I can manage it.” Leon’s hand darted up to grasp his, as if afraid he would draw away.

“No bucking, no thrusting, no lifting your head up. Nothing that would engage your abdominal muscles.”

The bulge of Leon’s adam’s apple bobbed against the pad of his thumb, those blue eyes suddenly wary. It appeared to have just dawned on him what he was asking for. To have sex in his fragile state, he would have to barely move. He had just willingly put himself at Wesker’s mercy. Leon took a long breath in through his teeth, his eyes fixed on Wesker’s. They were astonishingly blue, those eyes, bright and clear as gemstones.

“You know what you’re doing,” was all he said.

Trust. Who could have imagined.

Wesker spared a quick glance at the windows, daring fate to rain another distraction upon them. None did.

Once Leon was settled against the pillows, Wesker hooked his bare hand under Leon’s knee and levered the leg gently upwards and over, so the knee hung parallel with Leon’s hips and his ankle rested as near to his thigh as it could comfortably lie. Leon allowed the manhandling, relaxed and watchful. Obedient. Wesker usually preferred a little fight out of his partners--violence was its own sort of foreplay as far as he was concerned--but he had to admit, this passive compliance was a nice change of pace.

The other leg received the same treatment. The position let Leon stay flat on his back, without twisting, and hopefully wouldn’t induce him to clench his abs. It also left everything nicely exposed, from the gentle curves of abdomen to the ruddy shaft that peeked up with the first stir of interest. Leon’s breathing subtly quickened, as if the gaze of Wesker’s eyes were a physical caress. Leon gazed up at him through the fall of his hair, eyes intent with desire. The other man never bothered to hide his thirsty gaze when they both had their clothing off. In fact, he could barely seem to tear his eyes away from Wesker’s body.

Wesker leaned over him, granting him a better eyeful.

“How does this feel?”

“Exposed. And a little drafty.” Leon replied, a lovely red flush spreading up his neck.

“It’s a nice view,” Wesker assured him with a smirk. He traced a path down from the jut of Leon’s hip to his groin, and gave the half-hard cock a light stroke with the pads of two fingers. Leon shuddered at the touch.

“Mmm, likewise.”

It amused him to consider how impossible it was to tell the difference between a heart pounding in arousal or fear. He could guess which one Leon was feeling, as he circled lube-slicked fingers around Leon’s hole. Leon held eye contact with him as he was breached, his chest swelling on a sharply indrawn breath. His hands, which had been lying folded by his head, stretched upward to curl around Wesker’s shoulders with a teasing scrape of nail.

“Has it occurred to you,” Wesker asked lowly as he pumped the finger in and out, “that you are more helpless right now than you would have been if I had just tied you to the bed a few months ago?”

“Might have crossed my mind.” Leon’s reply was a half-groan, his eyelids fluttering while Wesker stretched him. “You know what’s changed, though?”

“What?”

Leon’s half-open mouth sharpened into a smirk as he bent his head to the side, covering his eyes with his hair. “Nevermind.”

“Have a care, Leon,” Wesker warned, playful rather than menacing. He teased the tip of a second finger in, slowly, coaxing Leon’s flesh to give. “You’re in no position to resist interrogation.”

“I’m supposed to be relaxed, right?”

“As well as you can be.”

“So maybe nix the threatening dirty talk this time, huh?”

Wesker chuckled.

“If you insist. Usually, you like it.”

“I admit noth-hnng,” the words died in a garbled mess as Wesker scissored his fingers open inside him.

“Has it been a while?” Wesker asked. “You’re quite tight.”

“Can’t remember the last time I bottomed,” Leon panted.

They were up to three fingers now, which Wesker pumped in and out at the same slow, careful pace.

“You do seem to prefer being able to tease your partners into madness,” Wesker said.

“That’s just you, ‘cuz you make it so fun.”

Cheeky.

He resented Leon somewhat, for playing him so well in bed. It was like the other man could somehow intuit his needs just by looking at him, and was single-mindedly determined to meet every one, no matter how embarrassing they might be. Here was a rare chance for a little revenge.

The muscles of his unoccupied hand flexed, itching with the compulsion to wrap around Leon’s throat and squeeze. Not out of malice, nor any desire to hurt Leon, but nothing gave Wesker a rush of control quite like feeling someone grow weak and dizzy under his hand. That kind of play would definitely send Leon running, unfortunately, so he restrained himself. He needed to make a good first impression if he wanted to be invited to do this again.

He kissed that throat instead, and settled for fucking Leon open with his hand. Leon’s abdomen kept twitching, little ripples of movement as his muscles started to tense before he caught himself.

“Are we...gonna get on with it, or are you working your way up to fisting?”

“I’m just being thorough. ‘Pliable’ is the word of the evening,” he purred in Leon’s ear.

“Don’t worry. I’m flexible.”

“I can see that.” Wesker glanced to one of Leon’s knees, where it hung only a couple inches off the mattress. He hadn’t expected Leon could bend that far. “Just remember, the looser you are, the lower the risk.” Wesker crooked his fingers and probed upwards until he grazed Leon’s prostate.

Leon moaned on an inhale, his shoulders shuddering. Wesker liked the noise so much he changed the angle of his hand so he could inspire a repeat performance. Leon caught his lower lip between his teeth and angled his face away, visibly struggling not to tense his core.

With a little adjusting of his knees, Wesker redistributed his weight so he could pull up his other hand and reach for Leon’s face. He thumbed at the abused lower lip, startling Leon into releasing his grip, and dragged his thumb over the swollen spot.

“Are we relaxed?” he asked, his fingers grinding against Leon’s prostate with one hand while his thumb nudged into Leon’s slack mouth.

“Yeah,” Leon breathed, the sound warped around Wesker’s thumb. “Gettin’ the’e.” His lids lowered to half mast and his tongue darted out to chase up the side of Wesker’s thumb.

Wesker quirked a smile.

“Good.”

He removed both hands, earning a breathy whine from Leon. He had done so little, and Leon was already so unraveled. He truly must have been desperate with sexual frustration. Not that Wesker was much better off. The sight alone of this man dazed and trembling with need had him half-hard already. He needed this just as much as Leon, he realized. Not just the sexual gratification, as pleasurable as that was. He needed the exercise in control. After that long nightmare of watching his options close up one by one until even his own body failed him, it was centering, almost meditative, to have this warm, willing body beneath him, bending to him, opening to him. He could not get the condom on quickly enough.

Once he was prepared, Wesker took hold of Leon’s hips, lined himself up, and pressed inside slowly.

“Ohhhh,” Leon said, articulately.

The angle needed some adjustment. He shifted his hands from Leon’s hips to his shoulders, holding the other man in place as he drew himself out inch by agonizing inch. “Relax. I’ve got you.”

“That’s. The part I should be worried abou--”

Wesker thrust back in, cutting that thought short.

“Fuck, you’re so deep,” Leon gasped.

“As I like to be. You weren’t planning to walk much tomorrow anyway.” Wesker smirked. Leon made a strangled noise.

“Lucky me I’ve got painkillers.”

Wesker began a rhythm of slow, powerful rolls of his hips that induced a squeak from his partner. Even after all that preparation, Leon was still so tight around him, and warm even to his baseline fever-heat.

He was always careful when he had sex with humans. A lack of control was not an option if he was topping. This, though, was a whole other level. It was the slowest, gentlest, most deliberate sex he’d ever engaged in. Neither of them could afford not to concentrate on the motions of their bodies.

Sometimes a flutter of tension would cross Leon’s shoulders before he forced himself to relax, to lie back and be as pliable as possible. His fingers clawed at the sheets, clenching and relaxing. He seemed to be doing his best to follow Wesker’s directives. Submission, finally. So this was what it took.

Such good behavior deserved a reward. Wesker smoothed his fingers over the ridge of Leon’s lower obliques, caressing the trembling skin all the way down to Leon’s neglected cock. Leon hummed in pure bliss as Wesker wrapped fingers around him. He liked it even more when Wesker’s calloused thumb rubbed circles about the head, smearing pre-cum over it.

The teasing movements turned coaxing, Wesker’s hand closing firmly on the shaft and pumping. He was not as acquainted with handling Leon’s cock as vice versa. Leon had always been strangely squeamish about letting Wesker touch the most vulnerable part of his anatomy. Fear, again, over his strength, or lack of faith in his control. Wesker took the opportunity to experiment, testing different techniques and watching the flesh react. Leon seemed most responsive to a firm hand on the tighter side, slightly off-beat from Wesker’s thrusting, and when Wesker cupped his balls briefly he spasmed with the effort of not bucking.

In no time at all, the proud agent had been reduced to a panting, sweaty mess. Truly, a beautiful sight.

“H-hey. C’mere,” Leon all but pleaded, reaching for him.

“Even I’m not that flexible,” Wesker told him, with some regret. He’d have liked to kiss Leon then, to feel all the little desperate noises he was making vibrate against his mouth.

“Really? Aren’t you a...” Leon trailed off, frowning.

“You’re trying to think of a pun, aren’t you.”

“Maybe.”

Wesker snapped his hips forward, testing a new angle. Leon gasped, definitely more in pleasure than pain. “The perils of dating a wannabe action hero,” Wesker said.

“That again? I’d-- _OH_.” Leon broke off on a loud moan, flailing a little as Wesker successfully hammered his prostate. “I-I’d like to see James Bond survive a zombie outbreak.”

He really was much too articulate for someone being fucked into the mattress. Wesker thought he ought to fix that. He picked up the pace, still thrusting deeply on every stroke, his hand pulling on Leon’s member without hurry. Leon’s sharp tongue softened into inarticulate moaning, his face a mask of pleasure.

“Not bucking...is really hard,” he gasped.

“If it’s such a problem for you...” Wesker removed his hand from Leon’s cock. Leon made a lovely wounded animal noise, tugging helplessly at the hands which Wesker had just casually pinned to the mattress.

“You’re a bastard,” he hissed.

“You already knew that,” Wesker replied, utterly pitiless. He released one hand so he could tilt Leon’s chin up. “Prove to be me you can be good, and I’ll reconsider.”

“I-I am, I--” he squeezed his eyes shut briefly, “What more do you want from me?”

“Cross your wrists above your head,” Wesker directed.

The simple order shocked Leon to stillness. Slowly, all but radiating disbelief, he moved to comply. Wesker dragged two fingers down the furrow between Leon’s pectorals, approving.

“Close your eyes.”

Leon hesitated, a light furrow between his brows, before his eyelids obediently shut.

“Now stay like that until I say otherwise.”

“Do you want me to beg?” Leon asked, his tone defiant even as his body position was everything but.

“If you like.”

“...will it help?”

“No.”

Leon muttered something unflattering under his breath about sadists. The muttering soon died out as Wesker went on fucking him at the same punishing pace, while Leon valiantly fought not to move. It was really too bad about the incision. Wesker would have loved to watch Leon writhe.

For a while quiet reigned, no sounds but the obscene slapping of flesh against flesh and the soft groans of the two men. Wesker had encountered a problem. Although his wound had healed over on the surface and the organs deeper inside had regrown, the muscle structure was nowhere near its old strength yet. They were not even at human-level strength, and wouldn’t be for some time, not until Wesker had consumed enough protein to rebuild the inhumanly dense muscle fiber. Fatigue burned through his core, threw off his pace.

“W-why are you slowing down?” Leon whined.

“You said you _didn’t_ want your pelvis crushed,” Wesker panted. A lie and an excuse. Neither his pride nor his paranoia could stomach outright admitting his current weakness.

Leon’s eyes popped open. “Waitamin--mmph.”

His protest cut off mid-word, muffled by the sudden thrust of Wesker’s fingers into his open mouth. Wide-eyed, he stared upwards, lips soft around Wesker’s knuckles.

“Let’s put that mouth to better use, shall we? Go on, suck. I know how much you like having your mouth full.”

A soft whine bubbled out of Leon. He applied himself with admirable fervor, sweeping his broad tongue up and down Wesker’s fingers, hollowing his cheeks and sucking with the same skill and devotion he usually paid to Wesker’s cock. Wesker deliberately slowed his pace, giving himself a breather and teasing Leon at the same time. Leon’s hips shuddered under his other hand.

“Very good,” he praised faintly.

“Mmm...”

Leon’s eyes had closed again, so he appeared blissful and pained at the same time. It had been a wild burst of inspiration on Wesker’s part, an educated guess based on past encounters, and it looked like he’d hit jackpot. A very well chosen distraction. He made a mental note that Leon definitely had an oral fixation.

Wesker drew his fingers out of that warm mouth with an obscene pop.

“You see how much better it goes for you when you listen to me?” he asked, wrapping the wet hand around Leon’s cock.

“A-ah!”

He resumed pumping Leon’s cock, while still keeping his slower thrusts. Leon’s mouth had fallen open and he was gasping, the fingers of his open hands clenching at air.

“Of course...you did open your eyes.” Wesker’s hand stopped moving. “And after I expressly ordered you not to.”

“Wes-kerrrr, c’mon,” Leon groaned, his shoulders squirming.

“Am I supposed to reward such disobedience?”

“I--How am I not supposed to look at you, when you’re so hot?”

“Flattery,” Wesker replied, unmoved.

“I’m...I’m sorry?” Leon tried. “Won’t do it again?”

“You don’t sound very sincere.”

“Wesker, please.”

“Please what?”

“Please--fuck me harder. Touch me. Anything. You’re killing me here.”

“Hmm.” Wesker gave an experimental hard thrust. A little shakiness in his abs still, but, he ought to have enough strength to finish. “Very well, I suppose I can have mercy just this once.”

Leon expressed his gratitude in a loud moan as Wesker picked up where he’d left off.

His climax came on him like an ambush. One moment he was watching Leon’s face, drinking in the expression of pure pleasure painted on the handsome, boyish features, the next he was thrusting deep and spilling, his breath caught in a soundless exclamation.

When the stars had cleared from his eyes and control had come back to him, he shook his head to clear it. Leon was whining about something--probably the fact Wesker had stopped touching him, fucking him.

He wrapped his fingers around Leon’s cock again, eager to watch Leon fall to pieces under him. The action was rewarded immediately with a groan of relief.

“I know what you want,” Wesker said, lightly thrusting with his softening member. “Do not chase it. Lie still and wait for it to overwhelm you.”

“E-easy to say...”

Of course, it was impossible for anyone to lie completely still when on the verge of orgasm. Leon’s hips jerked and shuddered, he squirmed and he trembled, but he did not buck and he kept his arms above his head. It was good enough. Leon came with his head thrown back and his hands clenched tight, cock spilling over Wesker’s hand and his own stomach. Afterwards he melted into the pillows, blinking dazedly at the ceiling.

Wesker pulled out and then collapsed beside Leon, feeling sweaty and disheveled yet accomplished.

“Ow, but worth it,” Leon panted.

Wesker sat up at once.

“How big of an ‘ow’?” he demanded.

“Relax, it’s just soreness.” Leon held his hands up, placating. “Don’t worry. No sharp pains.”

Huffing, Wesker flopped back down.

Leon laughed softly to himself.

“Remind me never to ask you to play doctor.”

“If you insist.” Wesker grabbed the wet towel he had left on the bed table earlier and tossed it on to Leon’s chest. “Clean yourself up before it dries.”

“Still giving orders,” Leon complained. He did it anyway.

Wesker stripped off the used condom, knotted it, and tossed it in the trash can. He turned back just in time to watch the dirtied washcloth complete its arc through the air and plop on the floor of the open bathroom. Leon tried to look innocent, took one look at Wesker’s expression, and ducked his head, hiding what sounded suspiciously like a snort.

“Later,” He promised. One lithe arm draped itself over Wesker’s chest, lightly holding him down in case he’d had any ideas about getting up and disposing of the towel properly.

“There is a trash can right over here.”

“And throw away a towel?”

Wesker made a disgusted sigh, but relented. He didn’t feel much like getting up at the moment, anyway.

Leon’s hand took to wandering the sweat-slick flesh of Wesker’s torso, not in an enticing way, just exploring--as if he were making up for all the touching he hadn’t been able to do while they were fucking. Naturally, it ended up tangled in Wesker’s hair, because Leon never could seem to help himself.

“Don’t glare at me like that,” Leon said. “It’s not like there’s any gel to mess up.”

“I will never understand your compulsion to touch my hair.”

“Yeah hold on.” Leon’s eyes had rounded, and his fingers were stroking up and down the back of his head with almost religious fervor. “Your hair is actually soft. I have to process this.”

Wesker rolled his eyes.

“Can’t you fondle your own hair?” he asked. Despite his grumpy response, he wasn’t really all that bothered. The soft scratching of Leon’s fingernails against his scalp was...nice. And it was true that there was no styling to mess up at the moment.

“How much pomade do you usually dump in this? Every other time it’s been like cement.”

“How many bottles of conditioner do you use in a week?” Wesker fired back, without heat. His eyes had drifted down to half mast. You would think he had slept enough over the past four days, but his body apparently had other ideas. He still had resting to do, to reach his old strength. Leon, too, would need more rest than normal. Reaching a decision, Wesker shook Leon’s hands off long enough to shut off the lamp.

“You have 10 seconds to vacate the room, if you don’t want to sleep,” he said.

“I’m good,” Leon replied through a yawn. Then followed up with a surprised “oh!” when Wesker abruptly turned on his side and folded his arms around the other man in a loose hold, with one leg flattened over Leon’s knee for good measure. Nonplussed, Leon blew his bangs out of his face.

“You’re a cuddler all of a sudden?”

“I don’t feel like switching sides of the bed, and you are in knee’s reach of the flesh I just healed,” Wesker replied.

“...huh?”

“You kick.”

“Oh. Sorry.” He sounded genuinely penitent. They lay a while in silence, locked together in an embrace that anyone who didn’t know better would call loving. Wesker had his ulterior motives, of course. His healing side was still uncomfortably warm, and Leon’s lower body temperature felt nicely cool against him.

“You almost gave me a heart attack, you know,” Leon said.

“Hmm?”

“I finally wrangled you in here, got you on the towels, took the brace off, and then you just. Stopped. Like you’d really kicked it for good.”

“I should have warned you,” Wesker said. “The death state is part of my healing process. I held it off as long as I could. I suppose it would be alarming.”

“Understatement,” Leon grumbled. He shifted around, burrowing closer against Wesker’s chest, breath puffing against his neck.

Outside, a car zoomed past down the lonely road. It had stopped raining some time ago, but the smell of it lingered still, all but overpowered by the sharper tang of sweat and sex and Leon’s shampoo. His senses dulled, crowded out by his body’s overwhelming need for true rest.

“How long can we get away with this?” Leon asked. Whether he was talking about their retreat here--or about their relationship in general--Wesker couldn’t tell. He supposed it didn’t matter. His answer was the same, regardless.

“I suppose we’ll have to see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand that’s all she wrote! For now. Yup, we’re ending on the smut scene. See I told you the rating would go up eventually.
> 
> There will be one more short epilogue to cap off this adventure. I am also currently working on a companion piece that will cover all the time they spend in the safehouse, both before and after Wesker wakes up, so keep an eye out for that.


	22. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn’t originally planning to give Hunk’s perspective, but someone requested it and my epilogue was looking a little anemic to have a whole chapter by itself, so I went and wrote it. Apologies in advance for any plot inconsistencies, it’s been a while since I went through my own fic and this was a bit last minute. Just chalk it up to unreliable narrator :D

_5 Hours After Wesker and Leon’s Escape_

The blackened ruins of the once beautiful ski lodge smoldered on the hillside, the once cozy retreat reduced to a desolate, fire blasted waste ringed with the corpses of dead men in blue and black. Nothing moved without the wind’s aid, which was offered freely and with great prejudice, stormy gusts stirring ash and smoke, fluttering the hair and loose clothing of the dead.

Halfway down the hill, a spot of grassy earth retracted in a perfect square shape. A man stumbled out from this new tunnel, clutching his bleeding arm and limping. He stripped his gas mask from his face and blew out a sigh. His uniform was blue.

“Hell of an emergency exit,” he said.

The wind gusted down from the ruin, almost as if to tap his shoulder. He turned, looking first to what was left of the lodge, and then over the scattered dead men lying around their overturned truck, and seemed to sag further. His gaze lingered a confused second over the smoking upper torso of a tyrant that sat in their midst.

“Jay is never going to believe this,” Mike muttered to himself.

While he began his lonely walk down the hill, he failed to notice the stirring in the skeleton of the lodge building, as a pile of debris shifted and a single, skeletal, blackened hand reached out.

* * *

_Hunk’s Report_

Mission Report Dec. 20th, 2005

Attempted acquisition failed due to unexpected presence of an agency operative and the BOW Albert Wesker. Judging by the state of their dress, all three of them were engaged in ~~a very dangerous threesome fornication~~ recreational bedroom activities. I can already guess Sir Spencer’s reaction to this report, so I wish to reiterate that Wesker was definitely part of the activities, and not there for the same reason we were.

He pursued me halfway across town before I was able to lose him. Can neither confirm nor deny the effectiveness of anti-BOW round type 4-epsilon b. Wesker was hit, showed no signs of serious injury. He might have been moving a little slower. If it hurt him, he wasn’t showing it.

I will have to put in a request for new gear, as I was forced to jettison mine in order to escape detection.

Unsubmitted addendum: I’m not the sort of man who likes to pry into people’s personal lives. Even so, I’m really, really curious how those three got together without killing each other.

* * *

Progress Report: March 24, 2006

Cornering Kennedy has been difficult. The recommendation that we take the target while he is out on mission was a bad idea. Kennedy is at his most armed and well supported when on the job, not to mention he becomes impossible to track. We’ve also made attempts during his rare vacations, but Wesker always seems to show up on his off time. Two of our missions were aborted immediately on confirmation of his presence.

Apparently the Christmas encounter was not a one-time event. I think they might actually be dating.

If we want this to work, we’re going to need some way of isolating Kennedy from his usual resources and distracting Albert Wesker at the same time.

* * *

Mission Report August 9th, 2006

Entry to facility went off without a hitch. Our information was solid. We were able to successfully infiltrate the target computer systems, take the data, and corrupt the systems. Unfortunately, that’s when things started going wrong. Enemy defenses were more formidable than expected, and most of the team got wiped out by BOWs. Kennedy slipped away in the chaos before we could apprehend him. Wesker left the facility shortly afterward.

On a hunch, I followed Wesker. As expected he led me to where Kennedy was staying. Knowing Wesker had been hit by at least three anti-BOW rounds and would be weakened, I decided to take the chance. By 0430 I had a second team ready, and we attacked while the pair were sleeping.

They almost gave us the slip a second time. Luckily, Wesker split up from the target and I was able to hit Kennedy with a sleeping dart before his boyfriend (please emphasize to Sir Spencer that I did read his feedback on previous reports, and have chosen to ignore it. They are definitely boyfriends and I will not pretend otherwise) came back.

Kennedy has been secured with the second team and I will be overseeing his transfer to the nearest lab myself.

* * *

Private Journal

Next mission’s another specimen transfer. The specimen won’t be ready for another week or two, so I’m to join the security team here until then. I’ve been keeping an eye on Kennedy, or LK24 as he’s designated now, half out of curiosity and half out of. I don’t know what. Guilt, maybe.

This man is a survivor of Raccoon City, just like me. He’s the one who put an end to the nightmare made out of my mistake. Being in the same room with him is strange--he’s like a walking reminder of the past. I don’t like thinking about the past and I don’t have any use for regret. Yet, I keep on checking in on him now and then. I guess you could say I respect him. It seems like a cruelly ironic fate for him to end up strapped to a bed here, drugged into a coma and used as a lab rat.

Spencer has convinced himself there’s something special about Kennedy that’s attracted Wesker’s interest. Something biological, genetic. I guess that’s what they’ve been testing him for now that the plaga is out of him. Spencer just refuses to acknowledge that one of his precious perfect beings is dating another man. It’s ridiculous if you ask me. The only ‘interest’ Wesker has in Kennedy is pretty obviously centered inside his pants. Spencer doesn’t like to acknowledge that Wesker swings both ways. Any time I bring it up, he goes into a frothing rant about how it’s “impossible,” that they “took steps” against this, and his glorious future requires that his chosen few “can procreate.”

I don’t think Spencer understands how bisexuality works, and like hell I’m going to be the one to explain it to him.

Burned Addendum: I might have convinced him if I’d told him about Mueller, but I won’t. I told Wesker when he transferred to our division that security keeps each other’s secrets, as long as they don’t interfere with the company. Well he may be a treacherous son of a bitch, but I’ll hold to my principles. Besides, that kid deserves better than to be dragged into this business. That’s the only thing I’ve ever agreed with his father about.

* * *

August 24th 2006

Outbreak Report File One

Code Red confirmed as of 1500 hours. Escaped specimen has been identified as C-L 001, the fungal-based BOW that was being prepared for transfer. I was not with the team when the incident happened. I was finishing one final escort of LK24 down to blue lab before I would take charge of C-L 001’s transfer out of the facility. We had just gotten the subject secured when the watchman at point 2 reported that several of the cameras had gone dark. He was looking away when it happened and could offer no further details. I had a bad feeling it wasn’t a tech issue. The three dead black screens still had spots of light leaking through, like the cameras had been covered.

I had read all the specimen files available to my clearance level, and I knew C-L 001 hated cameras. We’d passed the specimen in the hall earlier, and his handlers had already been having trouble with the transport vehicle. All of that added up to a specimen outbreak.

I ordered a lockdown on section 14 immediately, hoping to contain it. As the cameras kept going out and contact was lost with further security teams, I extended the lockdown to sections 13 and 18 and ordered a facility-wide evacuation. The outbreak moved faster than we could ever have prepared for. In spite of the security shutters, it kept reaching deeper into the complex, and soon we had reports of the biomass infiltrating sections 17 and 19.

Security teams Bravo, Charlie, and Delta were all wiped out attempting to evacuate the scientists. I rendezvoused with Echo team and moved to head off the outbreak on the East end. One of the dying Delta team members was able to warn us that the biomass was moving beneath the floor, through the crawlspace and ventilation system. I understand the security system down there had been built to hold off large, solid BOWs. We realized the biomass could slip between the holes in the grating and spread to other sectors. C-L 001 himself might be locked in section 14, but his reach would just keep growing outward until the whole facility was tainted.

We had no choice but to collapse the floor in strategic places with explosive charges in order to block off those vents. As a final containment measure I increased the lockdown to fully cut off the north end. I know some survivors got caught in there. We could hear them screaming behind the doors. There was nothing to be done. Opening the shutters was too big a risk.

Everything is contained for the moment. Surviving security staff have regrouped in the east end to await a response from HQ.

* * *

Outbreak Report File 2

C-L 001 continues slipping through holes in our security, and we are running out of explosives. I thought I heard one of the elevators blow in the distance, and at the time I assumed that the escaping specimen had triggered the auto-defense system.

We finally got orders back from HQ. They wanted CL-001 destroyed, the plaga specimens retrieved, and LK24 taken out of the facility. I sent most of the team in ahead of me, so I could finish preparing our exit route. Backup would be coming, but I didn’t expect them to get here in time. I was anticipating a sprint through the hot zone with my team and an unconscious test subject.

Then my team radioed in to tell me they’d made enemy contact with Albert Wesker. I’d been wondering if he would show up. Spencer seemed certain that he would, to collect his data and his ‘pet project’ (boyfriend), and the security staff had all been provided with ‘emergency measures’ in case of his appearance. Echo team did not survive the encounter, and the emergency measures reanimated them as mindless BOWs. Alone, I now had to acquire all the objectives and find a way out of the facility.

Of course, LK24 wasn’t in the lab where I’d left him, and the plaga specimens had been burned to ashes. I can guess which one of them did that. The rest of the specimens are in holding at the northwest end of the facility, and there’s a whole hell of a lot of angry mold between me and it. I’ve decided that it would be best to leave LK24 with Wesker for the time being, and prioritize the retrieval of the specimens. It would be much easier for me to go alone than to drag an awake and unwilling Kennedy through the hot zone.

Someone else is piggybacking on my remote access to the security system. Lockdowns have been triggered in several sections behind me. Initially I was afraid the outbreak had spread out from section 14, but the logs show that the biohazard sensors have not been tripped.

An unknown started using our comms. I knew all the rest of the staff had to be dead by now, and backup couldn’t have arrived yet. It turned out to be Kennedy, attempting to contact Wesker. They’d been separated by one of those lockdowns, which raises a lot of questions about who is triggering them, and why. Until I know more, I’ve chosen to lock everyone but myself out of the remote security access.

I have a decision to make now. I could grab LK24 now while he’s alone and vulnerable, or I could stick with my initial plan and wait for an opportunity after I have the plagas samples. I’m going to open the shutters to the hot zone and have a look at what I’m dealing with before I decide.

Addendum: please submit the attached audio recording to Sir Spencer directly for immediate review. It should put to bed a certain disagreement on the subject of Wesker and Kennedy’s relationship.

* * *

Outbreak Report File 3

Reached Green Lab only to find the shutter down. The bioweapon has not come near this area and I know I did not lock off this section myself. Someone is using our systems against us. Might be Wesker’s men. Remote security access has also been disabled, which can only be done from the control room itself. I knew I’d have to head back there to open access to the plagas samples.

I had some concern over backtracking; Wesker and C-L 001 were having an altercation in section 14 when I last passed through, and I did not stick around to witness the outcome. Whoever won that fight might still be lurking in the area. Wesker himself might have been the one to take over the control room.

I restocked my grenade supplies and grabbed a flamethrower from storage. I was confident that I would be facing either C-L 001 or Wesker alone. Wesker’s team had been well armed, but they weren’t prepared for a BOW like C-L 001 and I had low expectations for their survival.

I encountered C-L 001 just outside the northwest control room door, attempting entry. It looked badly singed and very angry. I assume Wesker had locked himself inside the room. I ran, it pursued. On my retreat I stumbled over a little rat who must have been tailing me the whole time. It was the same agency operative I ran into last Christmas. We exchanged gunfire briefly before the BOW interrupted us, and we ran in opposite directions.

She goes by many names, but the most common one is Ada Wong. According to our files, she’s another Raccoon survivor, and the only person besides myself to escape from that city with a sample of the G virus. No doubt she’s working for Wesker again, either for money or on a shared mission to liberate their boyfriend.

Speaking of Kennedy, I pieced together from an overheard radio conversation that he was alone in the residential area. Wesker was stuck in the control room for the foreseeable future. It was the best opportunity I was going to get, so I went for it. The residence is right next to the specimen elevator. I could move LK24 up to the lodge, lock him in a bedroom, and then carry out the rest of my mission before Wesker figured out what happened.

That was the plan, anyway. I ran into two roadblocks. Number one, someone (definitely Wesker) had unleashed a hostile tyrant, which is now patrolling the area. Number two, there are no connecting doors between residential and the west labs. To get around that, I will have to circle all the way back through section 14 and come up section 21.

I’m submitting this update while I wait for the Tyrant to leave the room. From the sound of the loud bangs in the distance, C-L 001 is on the move. Wherever it’s going, I need to not be in its path.

* * *

Outbreak Report File 4

Backup arrived, with new orders. We are to dispose of LK24 and capture C-L 001, instead. I was not told the reason for this change, but I can guess. I believe holding the phone up to my radio while Wesker and Kennedy flirt over it has finally convinced Sir Spencer that Wesker's interests in Kennedy are, in his words, "purely carnal." Now that Sir Spencer has accepted there’s nothing special about Kennedy, he sees no reason to waste resources capturing him. That man really can’t catch a break.

Getting C-L 001 back into containment is not going to be easy. On previous escapes this was only accomplished by immolating the entire building. As of now, our forces are keeping him contained to the residential sector. As I’m still cut off from the bulk of the team, I’ve taken over a nearby security station and have been directing forces using what few cameras are still working. There are two security stations on this side of the complex, and I’ve been bouncing between them both. Wong is still here, and she’s been doing everything in her power to make my job difficult.

I have not seen nor heard anything from Wesker since his last radio contact with LK24, and that makes me nervous. I know he won’t die easily. He’s hiding around here somewhere, plotting things. The fact he still hasn’t met back up with LK24 is strange. He’s been trailing after that man like an anxious mother duck this whole time. For him not to appear when Kennedy’s in danger tells me something’s up.

He might not be dead, but he could be injured. Hanging back somewhere. One of our squads had LK24 cornered when the Tyrant showed up to rescue him. Pine said the BOW scooped LK24 up in its arms and carried him off like a bride. Programming a Tyrant to do that would be extremely difficult. It’s more likely someone was controlling it directly, and only Wesker would know how. That he would use the Tyrant instead of going himself clinches it for me. He must be hurt badly.

Getting Wesker is not technically one of my mission objectives. However, he is an intruder, and the policy for all intruders is crystal clear: death, or submission as a test subject. If I have to pick between killing Kennedy and killing Wesker, I know which one I’d prefer.

Kennedy doesn’t have any means of contacting Wesker except through our comms. If Wesker is alive, they’ll need to talk to each other eventually. When they do, I’ll be ready.

* * *

Unsubmitted report

Fucking hell Kennedy is a good shot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, finally, at the end. This is easily the longest fic I've written, and I want to say thank you so much to everyone who has made it this far, and especially those who left comments/kudos! It was really the only thing keeping me going for a while. It feels a little sad to have it be over. But! I will be writing more for these two, and if I can ever get them out onto paper I have other RE ideas to explore, too.
> 
> Stay safe and healthy everyone!


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